Ars Magica?

[BAdler]

Hey, does anyone on here play Ars Magica?

 

Josh Sawyer started up a game around the new year and I have been taking part (with a few other Obsidianites). Man, that game is pretty cool. It's the only RPG where I have been creating/using multiple spreadsheets for basic tasks like tracking my character's progression or magical item creation.

 

Just wondering if anyone had cool Ars Magica stories to share.

[Nonek]

I suggested a campaign of Ars Magica to my Friday nighters after completing Darklands, as I was a little enraptured with that game and the similarities were obvious, interesting plots just sprang into being for any student of history, politics and mythology. However my group were not prepared to start up a new campaign, and preferred the more and less fantastical setting which we were using at that time, a real wasted opportunity I think.

[BAdler]

I suggested a campaign of Ars Magica to my Friday nighters after completing Darklands, as I was a little enraptured with that game and the similarities were obvious, interesting plots just sprang into being for any student of history, politics and mythology. However my group were not prepared to start up a new campaign, and preferred the more and less fantastical setting which we were using at that time, a real wasted opportunity I think.

Ars can be pretty daunting for new players. I ended up completely scrapping the first character I made for the campaign because I was so inefficient with the way I built him. This is pretty common for a lot of first characters in a new PnP RPG, but it was magnified in Ars Magica.

 

I ended up settling with a Verditius magus who is completely min-maxed for his item creation. It is interesting how I can be having so much fun with a character who isn't even built to really go on "adventures." Ars Magica, the only game I can think of where reading and lab work is more rewarding than adventuring.

[Gromnir]

it were 1989 and am thinking it were the second edition of ars that we were using. 

 

...

 

am suspecting that ars has come a long way since 1989, 'cause it were kinda a baffling mess back then with absolute useless armour and terrible combat... though admitted, combat were kinda secondary. character development options were slight more deep than d&d of the time, but were all 'bout the magic, so you better really like the magic 'cause much o' the rules were self-contradictory and outright silly.

 

am suspecting the ars we played were only slight resembling what you play nowadays. what edition is ars? *shrug* 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Nonek]

One of my players was against this because he said that playing a mortal (companion?) was merely a "resource" for the Magi, whom possessed the real agency and interesting role in the game world, and he was rather an anti-magic chap. In the end we never bought the rulebooks because of this, i'm not sure if he was correct or not, or whether he really couldn't play a Dwarf as was his wont.

 

Personally I would have been thrilled to create unusual encounters and situations, something other than dungeons and combat, where the player partially makes the story as happens in most good campaigns.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Nonek

[Gromnir]

One of my players was against this because he said that playing a mortal (companion?) was merely a "resource" for the Magi, whom possessed the real agency and interesting role in the game world, and he was rather an anti-magic chap. In the end we never bought the rulebooks because of this, i'm not sure if he was correct or not, or whether he really couldn't play a Dwarf as was his wont.

 

Personally I would have been thrilled to create unusual encounters and situations, something other than dungeons and combat, where the player partially makes the story as happens in most good campaigns.

your friend were expressing the prevailing view regarding grogs and companions.  no doubt a great gaming group and a competent gamemaster could make non magic guy fun to play in the ars magica we know, but the system itself made grogs and companions less immediate appealing. much less appealing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[BAdler]

it were 1989 and am thinking it were the second edition of ars that we were using. 

 

...

 

am suspecting that ars has come a long way since 1989, 'cause it were kinda a baffling mess back then with absolute useless armour and terrible combat... though admitted, combat were kinda secondary. character development options were slight more deep than d&d of the time, but were all 'bout the magic, so you better really like the magic 'cause much o' the rules were self-contradictory and outright silly.

 

am suspecting the ars we played were only slight resembling what you play nowadays. what edition is ars? *shrug* 

 

HA! Good Fun!

We are playing 5th edition. The rules are still a jumbled mess sometimes, but I am really enjoying the metagame of managing the covenant and planning my character advancement.

[BAdler]

 

One of my players was against this because he said that playing a mortal (companion?) was merely a "resource" for the Magi, whom possessed the real agency and interesting role in the game world, and he was rather an anti-magic chap. In the end we never bought the rulebooks because of this, i'm not sure if he was correct or not, or whether he really couldn't play a Dwarf as was his wont.

 

Personally I would have been thrilled to create unusual encounters and situations, something other than dungeons and combat, where the player partially makes the story as happens in most good campaigns.

your friend were expressing the prevailing view regarding grogs and companions.  no doubt a great gaming group and a competent gamemaster could make non magic guy fun to play in the ars magica we know, but the system itself made grogs and companions less immediate appealing. much less appealing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Strangely, I enjoy playing my companion more than my magus. While magi are really powerful compared to companions and grogs, they also have large downsides that companions excel at. Since magi tend to spend lots of their experience on their magical arts, they end up pretty deficient in some basic things that are really useful in normal adventures (hunt, stealth, awareness, combat skills, athletics, etc.). Magi can use magic to get around lots of those deficiencies, but sometimes nothing beats having a high ability score in Area Lore.

[Gromnir]

 

it were 1989 and am thinking it were the second edition of ars that we were using. 

 

...

 

am suspecting that ars has come a long way since 1989, 'cause it were kinda a baffling mess back then with absolute useless armour and terrible combat... though admitted, combat were kinda secondary. character development options were slight more deep than d&d of the time, but were all 'bout the magic, so you better really like the magic 'cause much o' the rules were self-contradictory and outright silly.

 

am suspecting the ars we played were only slight resembling what you play nowadays. what edition is ars? *shrug* 

 

HA! Good Fun!

We are playing 5th edition. The rules are still a jumbled mess sometimes, but I am really enjoying the metagame of managing the covenant and planning my character advancement.

 

the... complexity (?) of the system had immediate appeal. Gromnir is one o' those rules junkies that actual enjoys a dense system. however, our borderline ocd tendencies were not shared by our gaming brethren and frequently we were sent to a corner to crunch numbers in solitude as punishment for our gaming heresies. well, not really, but it felt like that. *shrug*  we always thought ars magica were one of those systems that were actual better suited for a computer environment as all the almost necessary metagaming that went into character development could be streamlined a bit. the ars magica rulebooks read likes horrible academic works where half of the book is actual the footnotes. near every ars magica rule entry would refer you to at least 1-2 other rule entries on complete different pages. 

 

actual gameplay had intriguing aspects, but our gaming group were kinda turned off by the emphasis on magic and by the rules density.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

There is a group that meets at my LCS bimonthly, is it worth checking out?

[BAdler]

There is a group that meets at my LCS bimonthly, is it worth checking out?

I would check it out. The rules can be a bit convoluted, but if you have the mind of a systems designer, you will probably enjoy it.

[ShadySands]

New Ars Magica Kickstarter confirmed?

[Leferd]

New Ars Magica Kickstarter confirmed?

There actually was one a couple years ago that failed to reach its funding goal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackchickenstudios/ars-magica-video-game?ref=discovery

 

Don't know too much about the setting, but from what I gather, it could beappealing to me -Darklands-esque. I'd like to play a cRPG grounded in a quasi-historical setting with a heavy emphasis in religion and witchcraft.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Companions can be pretty fun to make and play but they don't change a whole lot over the course of a campaign (I mean, other than getting old, weak, and dying).  I think one of the weakest points of AM5 is that it does not have core mechanic for gaining Virtues post character creation.  Ability advancement is painfully slow for non-magi and there are no real progress milestones for non-spellcasters to celebrate.

 

The main thing I enjoy about it is the emphasis on the covenant as the campaign's central character, changing over the course of decades (possibly centuries in crazy campaigns).  I appreciate the downtime mechanics.  The enchantment rules are quite Byzantine, but they are also part of downtime tasks, so it's never been much of a concern for me.

 

Overall I think the worst thing about AM5 as a whole is the organization of all of the books.  As a first-time player, it's extremely difficult to find your way around.

[Orogun01]

Companions can be pretty fun to make and play but they don't change a whole lot over the course of a campaign (I mean, other than getting old, weak, and dying).  I think one of the weakest points of AM5 is that it does not have core mechanic for gaining Virtues post character creation.  Ability advancement is painfully slow for non-magi and there are no real progress milestones for non-spellcasters to celebrate.

 

The main thing I enjoy about it is the emphasis on the covenant as the campaign's central character, changing over the course of decades (possibly centuries in crazy campaigns).  I appreciate the downtime mechanics.  The enchantment rules are quite Byzantine, but they are also part of downtime tasks, so it's never been much of a concern for me.

 

Overall I think the worst thing about AM5 as a whole is the organization of all of the books.  As a first-time player, it's extremely difficult to find your way around.

You can always make your own homebrew edition.