-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Ars Magica - Experiences
- Thread starter ArghMark
- Start date
The Ars Magica campaign we played (using the 3e rules) was unfortunately short-lived but one of the best roleplaying experiences I ever had.
The troupe style worked marvelously for us. We were switching characters all the time, especially when we played stories in or near our covenant.
Creating the covenant and all the characters associated with it (including contacts, rivals, and enemies) was at least as fun as actually playing the game.
I'm still buying every single supplement for the game since I also enjoy reading the books. They're among the best researched, well-written rpg books I know. Atlas has been doing a incredibly good job with the 5th edition.
I like pretty much everything about it except maybe the combat system (which underwent significant changes from edition to edition). But since combat isn't really a focus of a typical Ars Magica saga it doesn't matter all that much.
I highly recommend it with the caveat that you need pretty dedicated players to make the game work.
The troupe style worked marvelously for us. We were switching characters all the time, especially when we played stories in or near our covenant.
Creating the covenant and all the characters associated with it (including contacts, rivals, and enemies) was at least as fun as actually playing the game.
I'm still buying every single supplement for the game since I also enjoy reading the books. They're among the best researched, well-written rpg books I know. Atlas has been doing a incredibly good job with the 5th edition.
I like pretty much everything about it except maybe the combat system (which underwent significant changes from edition to edition). But since combat isn't really a focus of a typical Ars Magica saga it doesn't matter all that much.
I highly recommend it with the caveat that you need pretty dedicated players to make the game work.
Woas
First Post
I want to play and typically (probably 9 times out 10) am the GM.
Haffrung Helleyes
First Post
Ars Magica
What I really loved about the game was how complex character creation was, along with the mechanics for the coven, season-based play, and Vis.
What I disliked was how affecting creatures with spells basically came down to rolling vs their magical might, which was a single number. I thought this was too
simplistic, given the rest of the system.
Ken
What I really loved about the game was how complex character creation was, along with the mechanics for the coven, season-based play, and Vis.
What I disliked was how affecting creatures with spells basically came down to rolling vs their magical might, which was a single number. I thought this was too
simplistic, given the rest of the system.
Ken
CharlesRyan
Adventurer
I love Ars Magica, and I've been playing it in various campaigns almost continuously for 10 or 12 years. My current campaign is nearly three years in.
That said, I've never played it as written. Never in troupe style. Almost never with the game's intended level of downtime lab activity. In fact, my current campaign is really an OGL game, using ArM's setting and magic system.
Which really gets down to what it is I like about the game: the setting and magic system. The rest of the game system (setting aside lab magic) is fine, but the imbalance between magi and other characters is problematic. Fortunately, the magic system ports very neatly to d20, which is a system that allows other classes to be easily built in reasonable balance to one another and to the magi.
And the setting, of course, is never farther away that the intarwebs; I have literally millions of pages of background on Europe in the age of the Crusades at my fingertips.
That said, I've never played it as written. Never in troupe style. Almost never with the game's intended level of downtime lab activity. In fact, my current campaign is really an OGL game, using ArM's setting and magic system.
Which really gets down to what it is I like about the game: the setting and magic system. The rest of the game system (setting aside lab magic) is fine, but the imbalance between magi and other characters is problematic. Fortunately, the magic system ports very neatly to d20, which is a system that allows other classes to be easily built in reasonable balance to one another and to the magi.
And the setting, of course, is never farther away that the intarwebs; I have literally millions of pages of background on Europe in the age of the Crusades at my fingertips.
grodog
Hero
I love ArM and have since I discovered the 2e edition. I've only ever been able to play it twice for more than a one shot or two: once we leveraged the ArM system and some of the Mythic Europe background/tropes in a Warhammer FRP Game (this was some time before the WFRP sorcery rules were published), and the game was a lot of fun, but we only played for a semester or so during my undergrad years @ PSU. In the second game, I ran a full-blown Troupe Style game set in Koln, Germany, but it too was short lived.
Like Amber, finding the "right" folks who are really interested in experimenting with/exploring the possibilities of the game's approach to the setting and system is important IME.
Like Amber, finding the "right" folks who are really interested in experimenting with/exploring the possibilities of the game's approach to the setting and system is important IME.
Wombat
First Post
Well, as you might be able to tell from my tags, I love the game. 
I started off running 2nd ed and have played in and/or run every edition since, including doing quite a bit of playtesting for various supplements and the core book for the current (5th) edition.
What do I like about it? Well, the setting for one, as I am a bit of a medieval history nut, but much more importantly I like the communal feeling of the game. In a large sense, you are not creating a character, but a whole village, in that everyone creates multiple characters and there is a tendency (seen over multiple sagas) to keep creating the background characters for your covenant (various servants, farmers, etc. -- almost 100% noncombatants, but still interesting to know about).
I also love the sense of the passage of time. In most games, time is primarily important in the sense of how many rounds of combat have passed, but in AM there is actually the feeling of time passing in terms of seasons and, of course, years. I still remember the reaction my group at the time had when a grog (warrior) died of old age (rather than combat or disease) -- it was a sobering experience for the group.
The magic system is what first drew me to the game. The sheer level of flexibility in it is something that always makes me happy. I have seen players go utterly combative in their magics, utterly noncombative, and all sorts of washes in between. To be fair, though, many people find the combat system somewhat less exciting, but that is not the real focus of the game, so it makes a certain amount of sense (the sheer fact that each edition has radically rewritten the combat rules may give you a sense of what they got right -- magic, Virtues & Flaws -- and what they were less satisfied with).
AM is, however, a difficult game to get people interested in, at least compared to D&D. In rpgs, D&D is the tail that wags the dog -- it is everywhere and well known, thus it is much easier to get people to try. AM tends to draw on older gamers who have already tried other systems and found them missing something in one area or another, but it has never been a major system or one that is easy to find. It is, in many ways, a specialty game, but it is one that I adore.
I will gleefully answer any PMs on the topic.
I started off running 2nd ed and have played in and/or run every edition since, including doing quite a bit of playtesting for various supplements and the core book for the current (5th) edition.
What do I like about it? Well, the setting for one, as I am a bit of a medieval history nut, but much more importantly I like the communal feeling of the game. In a large sense, you are not creating a character, but a whole village, in that everyone creates multiple characters and there is a tendency (seen over multiple sagas) to keep creating the background characters for your covenant (various servants, farmers, etc. -- almost 100% noncombatants, but still interesting to know about).
I also love the sense of the passage of time. In most games, time is primarily important in the sense of how many rounds of combat have passed, but in AM there is actually the feeling of time passing in terms of seasons and, of course, years. I still remember the reaction my group at the time had when a grog (warrior) died of old age (rather than combat or disease) -- it was a sobering experience for the group.
The magic system is what first drew me to the game. The sheer level of flexibility in it is something that always makes me happy. I have seen players go utterly combative in their magics, utterly noncombative, and all sorts of washes in between. To be fair, though, many people find the combat system somewhat less exciting, but that is not the real focus of the game, so it makes a certain amount of sense (the sheer fact that each edition has radically rewritten the combat rules may give you a sense of what they got right -- magic, Virtues & Flaws -- and what they were less satisfied with).
AM is, however, a difficult game to get people interested in, at least compared to D&D. In rpgs, D&D is the tail that wags the dog -- it is everywhere and well known, thus it is much easier to get people to try. AM tends to draw on older gamers who have already tried other systems and found them missing something in one area or another, but it has never been a major system or one that is easy to find. It is, in many ways, a specialty game, but it is one that I adore.
I will gleefully answer any PMs on the topic.
I've run and played both.
Ars Magica really focuses on a high sorcery experience. Mages can literally call forth plagues, hurricanes, and tidal waves (at high enough level and a small risk to themselves). The basic campaign revolves around a small group of mages that band together for support, protection, and resource sharing (a covenant), those highly talented individuals drawn to mages for whatever reason (companions), and typical support inhabitants (men-at-arms are known as grogs).
The expected campaign setting is somewhere in Mythic Europe -- historical Europe with a fair amount of supernatural overlay. The Church is a strong supernaturally protective force.
Mages have extended life spans and gain power primarily through uninterrupted magical study done over the course of a three month period.
The expected adventure pacing is an adventure a year. For each adventure, the player picks whether he will run his mage, his companion, or a few grogs. The power levels between the three choices is quite noticable. Character advancement is reasonably rapid for active companions and inactive mages.
A character is composed of attrbutes, virtues (character advantages) and flaws (character disadvantages), skills, and magical arts. There is a small personality system for tracking free-form loves/hates to help define personality, but little mechanical effect.
Pendragon focuses on knightly adventuring set in Arthurian Britain. Magic is weak and limited -- especially in the hands of players. The basic campaign revolves around a group of knights questing to get landed titles, notoriety, and romance.
Players create a single character, typically a knight, but other options are possible. The expected adventure pacing is one per year. Familial dynasties as possible as the adventuring lifetime of a knight is reasonably short. Character advancement is slow.
A character is composed of attributes, skills, passions (loves/hates that can have a very large mechanical effect when encountering the object of the passion), and personality traits (a set of virtue/vice pairings common to all characters with assigned values).
Ars Magica really focuses on a high sorcery experience. Mages can literally call forth plagues, hurricanes, and tidal waves (at high enough level and a small risk to themselves). The basic campaign revolves around a small group of mages that band together for support, protection, and resource sharing (a covenant), those highly talented individuals drawn to mages for whatever reason (companions), and typical support inhabitants (men-at-arms are known as grogs).
The expected campaign setting is somewhere in Mythic Europe -- historical Europe with a fair amount of supernatural overlay. The Church is a strong supernaturally protective force.
Mages have extended life spans and gain power primarily through uninterrupted magical study done over the course of a three month period.
The expected adventure pacing is an adventure a year. For each adventure, the player picks whether he will run his mage, his companion, or a few grogs. The power levels between the three choices is quite noticable. Character advancement is reasonably rapid for active companions and inactive mages.
A character is composed of attrbutes, virtues (character advantages) and flaws (character disadvantages), skills, and magical arts. There is a small personality system for tracking free-form loves/hates to help define personality, but little mechanical effect.
Pendragon focuses on knightly adventuring set in Arthurian Britain. Magic is weak and limited -- especially in the hands of players. The basic campaign revolves around a group of knights questing to get landed titles, notoriety, and romance.
Players create a single character, typically a knight, but other options are possible. The expected adventure pacing is one per year. Familial dynasties as possible as the adventuring lifetime of a knight is reasonably short. Character advancement is slow.
A character is composed of attributes, skills, passions (loves/hates that can have a very large mechanical effect when encountering the object of the passion), and personality traits (a set of virtue/vice pairings common to all characters with assigned values).
Convention Play
I was always interested in playing this game because the setting and mechanics seemed well thought out, so I jumped at the chance to play during convention. You can probably all see where I'm going with this - I had a horrible time at the convention.
We were all apprentices under the mages in the tower that awoke one day to find them all gone. The majority of the time was spent with the GM's girlfriend (who was playing a vampire that captured the mages and was the wife of the local noble) raining down magical attacks on the group that almost killed us. Other than to keep the story going, it really didn't make any sense why she didn't kill us outright if she knew who we were and that we were trying to get back our mentors. It didn't make logical sense that the apprentices were able to do something the 'powerful mages' weren't capable of doing.
The entire adventure left me with a bad opinion of the setting and system - I had thought that Ars Magica was more 'historical' and that the mages were more subtle with their magic. With all of this show of power by the vampire and the obvious differences in power levels, it seemed to me to be just another D&D game with a setting that didn't match the rules.
Mark
I was always interested in playing this game because the setting and mechanics seemed well thought out, so I jumped at the chance to play during convention. You can probably all see where I'm going with this - I had a horrible time at the convention.
We were all apprentices under the mages in the tower that awoke one day to find them all gone. The majority of the time was spent with the GM's girlfriend (who was playing a vampire that captured the mages and was the wife of the local noble) raining down magical attacks on the group that almost killed us. Other than to keep the story going, it really didn't make any sense why she didn't kill us outright if she knew who we were and that we were trying to get back our mentors. It didn't make logical sense that the apprentices were able to do something the 'powerful mages' weren't capable of doing.
The entire adventure left me with a bad opinion of the setting and system - I had thought that Ars Magica was more 'historical' and that the mages were more subtle with their magic. With all of this show of power by the vampire and the obvious differences in power levels, it seemed to me to be just another D&D game with a setting that didn't match the rules.
Mark
Similar Threads
