About Ars Magica editions...

[Wombat]

AM has never really had a combat system, under any edition, that appeals to combat-players. Then again, the game is not centered around combat, per se, but rather the development of the Covenant (essentially a magical village). It is this sense of community that the rules foster that I have always enjoyed. It is also good because there is never the awkward "Why is this group together" moment, in that everyone is part of a larger organization -- the Covenant, the Order of Hermes, and Western (usually) Europe (usually).

I started with 2nd edition, and have played each subsequent edition. The magic system has been tweaked from time to time, with greater or fewer examples; I like the current version best merely for gaming self-consistency, but I have never had a problem with any of the magic rules. 3rd edition (when White Wolf published the game) was an attempt to move AM closer to the WoD line (unsurprising since half the folks who developed AM eventually formed WW); I wasn't particularly fond of all the demon references, but the rules were certainly fine. Fourth edition there was a move away from that. Fifth has one very surprising element to me -- the faeries are now tied to human imagination, rather than to nature. Still, it's easy to tweak the game a bit here and a bit there to fit something closer to an individual vision of what the game should be all about.

A friend of mine has been working on a set of variant rules to place AM in the modern world; personally, I am trying to come up with an equivalent set of rules for setting AM in the mid-18th to early 19th century (this came about after reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell). We'll see which of us completes our task quicker...

 

[Olive]

Hey, a qyestion 've been meaning to ask. How many people do you need to play AM and have fun? Would 2 be enough? Or would you need three at least?

 

[Mokona]

Rules or Background?

2nd edition Ars Magica has the best (ie best and easiest) rules ever written for the game. If you want more complex rules and more setting explanations then 5th edition by Atlas is the choice for you.

 

[Wombat]

Hey, a qyestion 've been meaning to ask. How many people do you need to play AM and have fun? Would 2 be enough? Or would you need three at least?

Like 2 players and a GM? Sure, it would work fine. I've done it that way a couple different times.

The largest group I ever had was 7 players; the smallest group I had was 2 players. Funny thing is that it worked just fine both ways.

 

[tetsujin28]

My favourite edition was 3rd (the WW one) and the newest one. I hated 4th.

 

[pogre]

I'm surprised so many folks liked 3rd - it was my least favorite. In my limited experience thus far, combat still sucks in 5th edition. I agree with whomever pointed out the spell rules have been complicated a bit too much in this edition. I like 2nd edition best, but 5th is not too bad overall.

 

[Olive]

Like 2 players and a GM? Sure, it would work fine. I've done it that way a couple different times.

The largest group I ever had was 7 players; the smallest group I had was 2 players. Funny thing is that it worked just fine both ways.

I thought the idea with troup play was that the GMing rotated? I actually meant two all up...

 

[Wombat]

I thought the idea with troup play was that the GMing rotated? I actually meant two all up...

Well, I have played in one saga where we rotated GM duty, but the group was not as fond of that concept.

Everyone has multiple characters, so that takes a lot of the pressure off in case you feel the group is too small to handle a given situation -- just have everyone bring along all their characters, as well as a good selection of grogs.

But getting back to your point, hmmm, two all told? That might be very tricky. I've done a lot of "solo gaming" (1 GM, 1 player) and it is very fun, but it also tends to be pretty intense, with less emphasis on the rules and much more on emotions. As a once-in-a-while thought, I love 1-on-1 gaming; as a campaign, I am not as certain. For me, it would be pretty draining.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I'm playing in a 5th edition game at the moment. Overall, I'm finding it a lot more streamlined than the 4th edition campaign we played. Can't recall my experiences with the older editions... never played them much.

I like it. IMO, it feels like the writers have taken a few lessons from DnD/D20 in general. The rules feel more unified - most noticably with experience and training. Less strange exceptions. Find they are layed out and explained rather better than 4th edition.

Some attention has been payed to the 'gods of game balance'... certain 'no brainer' spells from previous editions have been made rather more difficult to cast. I like what they've done with it... Can see why others might not. Jury is still out on the spell penetration stuff that Laslo Tremaine was talking about. I like it in principle, but we've not been playing long enough for it to have a major impact on the game.

Combat is still not the strongest point of the system, but IMO it's years ahead of 4th edition. Still rather lethal!

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

You could certainly play Ars with just two people. You could easily trade off the GMing role and just have a covenant of two Magi, two Companions and a bunch of Grogs. It would be kind of interesting seeing one player switching between the various characters around the covenant.

As far as which edition is the best... I too have been playing since 2nd Ed. For me, each edition has added quite a few things that I've liked and one or two things that I've disliked (namely True Reason and Reason Aura's in 3rd ed. ). The up-shot is that we always play a new edition with the rules-as-written (RAW) for the first 5 sessions or so. Then once we have a feel for the way the new edition plays (what we like and don't like), we then start house-ruling and ditching the bad, and bringing back the good...