Ars Magica - Experiences

[Garthanos]

Adding Hero Class non-mages was one of the hacks on Ars Magica that I thought was interesting. Never got to play. ... Ars Magica has Hero/(Sidekick|Henchmen)/Hireling Model and sometimes the hirelings make for the most interesting roleplaying. It actually partakes of early D&D in that regard.;p The core game the only Hero caliber characters are mages and so it focuses on there pacing... they make and carry out plans which feature seasons not weeks.

 

[ArghMark]

I'm currently running a Play by Post on these messageboards at the moment, and I must admit that the game is far more difficult to run; while I am enjoying the pbp game, I would prefer to run it in person. As opposed to Tikk's post I find that adventuring is 80% and 20% is doing the paperwork while playing the game in person, and that has always been the case excepting the first game when making the characters and covenant. Once that has finished, adventures flourish - And I run a adventure for every 3 seasons style of game.

Unlike Tikk, I am finding that adventuring in Mythic Europe is something that while the wizards may sit in the covenant, companions are out and doing; and sometimes vice versa. By far the majority of the time we are adventuring, not tinkering.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I'm currently running a Play by Post on these messageboards at the moment,

Do you have a link? I'd like to read your experiences. Because I don't understand this at all:

I am finding that adventuring in Mythic Europe is something that while the wizards may sit in the covenant, companions are out and doing; and sometimes vice versa. By far the majority of the time we are adventuring, not tinkering.

By my very rough count, 95% of the ArM5 core book deals with magi: creating magi, creating new spells and items, their running a covenant, their interactions with non-magi on those rare occasions the magi leave their covenant, etc., etc.

By contrast, companions very rarely and grogs never are able to use magic. There are only a couple pages used to describe creating companions and grogs. The adventuring mechanics--including combat--only take up less than a dozen pages and are relatively abstract.

The predominant focus of the book is on the magi and using them as the focus of your campaign. If you essentially aren't going to use magi I don't understand why you would use Ars Magica at all.

To be clear I'm not judging you or your group. I'm just confused and look forward to reading your play logs to become educated.

 

[Garthanos]

I designed a Magi with a Sword Talent and gifts at battling daemons and pictured his magic as being ancient greek divine power that he was channeling intuitively the books he read were mythic reminders of his divine heritage ... I thought of him as something like a son of Nemesis and a mortal with obcessions with justice a HERO in a greek sense and a Quaesitor(sp) in the order of Hermes... his potions of longitude would be offerings poured at the foot of a tree of life from which he consumes the fruit of the gods it produces.

 

[Yair]

By my very rough count, 95% of the ArM5 core book deals with magi: creating magi, creating new spells and items, their running a covenant, their interactions with non-magi on those rare occasions the magi leave their covenant, etc., etc.

By contrast, companions very rarely and grogs never are able to use magic. There are only a couple pages used to describe creating companions and grogs. The adventuring mechanics--including combat--only take up less than a dozen pages and are relatively abstract.

The predominant focus of the book is on the magi and using them as the focus of your campaign. If you essentially aren't going to use magi I don't understand why you would use Ars Magica at all.

This is largely true, although the supplements have a roughly 1:3 balance (i.e. 1 companion to 3 wizard oriented splat books). Although I think a non-magus Ars Magica campaign can be very interesting, the system poorly supports it, and Ars Magica is all about playing the wizards.

However, the system also explicitly encourages the magi to (rarely) join adventures. Story flaws obligate you to do so when the SG draws that card, and he invariably has carrots and sticks to wave around. I don't find staying in the covenant to be a problem at all; it's just the character's down-time, much like a D&D PC's downtime between adventures. Having the wizards stay in the covenant is more a matter of troupe-style play and group choice. In normal D&D, the wizard doesn't stay in the tower in-game because he finds in-game reasons to leave his "studies"; the same can be true in ArM, if the "gaming contract" is like D&D - i.e. every player plays his (only) character in every adventure. The only difference is that ArM wizards actually benefit from studying in their tower - which I can't consider against it, it adds to verisimilitude (and it can be ameliorated or reversed at the hands of a good SG). The decision to stay in the covenant is a matter of play-style.

I don't find the overwhelming 80% book-keeping true at all. I think it depends a lot on familiarity with the rules, but in my experience adventuring sessions take up the vast bulk of the time and book-keeping advancement is done in between and does not really take that much more time than advancing a character in 4e, say. (The 4e rules are simpler, but most time is spent bickering with yourself what you want to do anyway.) Book-keeping the covenant and especially its grogs can be a bitch, but that's the DM's problem Overall, I find ArM involves lots more book-keeping (perhaps indeed 20%), but most time messing with it is spent on the fun "what am I gonna do now?" question, rather than the dull "mark 7 in that column..." chore.

[Incidentally, I'm playing in that play-by-post, and we're playing magi. All the time is spent on adventure, but we haven't really gotten to the seasonal-stage yet, so we'll see.]

 

[Jhaelen]

By contrast, companions very rarely and grogs never are able to use magic. There are only a couple pages used to describe creating companions and grogs. The adventuring mechanics--including combat--only take up less than a dozen pages and are relatively abstract.

The predominant focus of the book is on the magi and using them as the focus of your campaign. If you essentially aren't going to use magi I don't understand why you would use Ars Magica at all.

Well, in our games, the 'adventuring party' was generally composed of one magus with the rest playing companions or shield grogs.

Except when we played adventures in the covenant or at tribunal meetings, where everyone could play their magi.

I can certainly see how the system might not appeal to someone who prefers system with a complex tactical combat system. But it's a great roleplaying game and it's also the prototype for the storytelling games that would succeed it.

For me it's the perfect companion rpg system for the typical D&D game. I wouldn't want to play D&D all the time and neither am I in the mood for Ars Magica all the time. Taken together I get my fix for everything I enjoy about roleplaying games.

 

[ArghMark]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/playin...-5e-rhine-tribunal-1220-a-19.html#post5173692


I hope that works. Please understand that everything that has happened in that post is about one session worth of real-time gaming.

Hmm.. perhaps I should explain what I mean, and I can understand how my words could be confused.

This is how I do it; whenever an adventure hook hits PC's choose a character, either Magi or Companions, or if in complete doubt grogs are available and tend to be played for laughs. One or two people generally choose a mage, and the others may choose companions simply because their mages are busy or simply uninterested in the adventure; however, due to having other characters, every player contributes to the adventure.

Adventure goes on for a few hours, and then we simply work out what the other characters did in the time, which takes maybe 20 minutes maximum - although we are fairly quick with paperwork. Then if time permits I'll hit PC's with another adventure, and if it interests people they choose characters again. I've had entire adventures with nothing but companions and other games with nothing but mages, and a few short things with nothing but grogs.


While the book gives a lot of stuff for mages, my group at least has companions as at least as important to the game as Magi, especially for more mundane matters; If there is a rumour that a local lord needs a dragon slain and is willing to part with the land, then a noble companion will head off with some friends. If a strange magical spirit is haunting the local village, chances are the mages will want a look.

As it works out, we spend way more time adventuring and generally only 20 minutes at max doing the seasonal stuff.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I don't find the overwhelming 80% book-keeping true at all.

I agree. Even played strictly as written, it's not that big a deal. And if you don't like that aspect of the game, just skip it. I do.

ArM can be played in the completely conventional manner; that's how I play it. As written, the stumbling block is the big power disparity between magi and other characters. An all-magi game can be too powerful (four magi can, between them, probably solve almost any problem with relative ease); a one-magi game can leave some players feeling overshadowed. But that might not be a problem for some player groups, and it can be mitigated pretty easily by tweaking character generation for companion characters and the GM keeping mindful of the magi's inherent weaknesses.

 

[CharlesRyan]

ArM is a game for academic nerds who like to spend more time twiddling dials than engaging in heroics.

This is true. Just as true as saying D&D is a game for munchkin power gamers who like to spend more time min/maxing their 41st-level paladins than engaging in roleplaying.