Ars Magica To Get A New Edition

Ars Magica, currently on its 5th Edition, will be getting a 5th Edition Definitive edition this year. 5th Edition was released 20 years ago, and this new version will hit crowdfunding in fall 2024 as a full-colour hardcover book.

The original Ars Magica was released in 1987, and the game has been owned by Lion Rampant, White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, and its current owner Atlas Games. Set in a mythical version of Europe, it centers around mages and features 'troupe' play where players have more than one character. It also boasts a 'verb-noun' magic system, enabling players to improvise spells on the go.

This edition has been in the works for a few years, revising and updating the text, and adding new material, new art, and new layout.

Additionally, the game will come with an open license; Atlas Games has not chosen which yet, but says it is leaning towards Creative Commons (CC BY-SA).

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think we may be having different definitions of a game being integrated into its setting and/or genre. Could you take the core mechanic of d10+stat+skill vs difficulty, along with mechanics for damage and such and build another game around it? Sure. You could bring along the magic system, though it does have a bunch of medievalisms in it as well (such as not being able to affect anything beyond the Earth). But skills, advantages/flaws, creatures, and all that other stuff that makes it a game rather than a game engine, all form around a medieval core.

To use a D&D analogue: D&D is built around a setting that vaguely corresponds to Greyhawk. You have studious wizards, you have clerics wielding both martial implements and divine magic, and there's a huge gaggle of various monsters with different roles in the world. You might be playing in Greyhawk, or the Forgotten Realms, or Eberron, or a homebrew setting, but they're all essentially Greyhawk with different geography. If you want to change a lot of the built-in Greyhawkisms, you could get something like Arcana Evolved, with mostly the same rules engine but different races, different classes, different spell lists (both in the actual spells and in how they're organized), and so on. Or if you want to go to another genre, you'd get something like d20 Modern or one of the d20 Star Warses. They're all built on the same core chassis, but they're also very clearly different games.

That's basically how I see using Ars Magica outside of Mythic Europe. You can certainly transplant the game to a different geography, where things like Provence or England doesn't exist, without other consequences than you having to make up more material yourself. But that would be the equivalent of setting your D&D game in Greyhawk instead of the Forgotten Realms.

The magic system itself is effects-driven. The paradigm used to explain limitations and the like is tied to medievalism, sure. However, the system itself is still adaptable to other paradigms. You don’t even need to use the Latin nomenclature which are just flavour. Indeed, the real sourcebook that over-rides the core rules somewhat to make the game system fully authentic in a medieval context is The Mysteries book - but that is a supplement and therefore optional.

You also get the point that much of modern fantasy - like Harry Potter - still implies a pseudo-medieval paradigm even though the setting is obviously anachronistic again.

If the game is going to be open-source then I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot of third party writers that immediately adapt the rules to home-brew settings.

 

[MNblockhead]

Does the Ars Magica Mythic Europe setting have fantasy races and monsters? Would I be able to take, for example, a D&D setting but run the game with Ars Magica rules? I have a homebrew setting that I created that is not as much of a kitchen sink setting as, say, Forgotten Realms or The Lost Lands, but still has dwarves and a mostly D&D monsters. Still, I could easily run a game in it using other rule systems, such as Cortex Prime, DCC, etc. There would, however, have to be some mechanical way to stat up monsters at least. Also, while I would have no problem with all PCs being human, there would need to be a way to stat up halfling, gnome, dwarven, etc. NPCs.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Does the Ars Magica Mythic Europe setting have fantasy races and monsters? Would I be able to take, for example, a D&D setting but run the game with Ars Magica rules? I have a homebrew setting that I created that is not as much of a kitchen sink setting as, say, Forgotten Realms or The Lost Lands, but still has dwarves and a mostly D&D monsters. Still, I could easily run a game in it using other rule systems, such as Cortex Prime, DCC, etc. There would, however, have to be some mechanical way to stat up monsters at least. Also, while I would have no problem with all PCs being human, there would need to be a way to stat up halfling, gnome, dwarven, etc. NPCs.

Well, there are different realms (Mundane, Divine, Infernal, Faerie, Magical) that each have listed ‘monster’ stats that fits in with each. However, it is a mythical world so even the mundane beasts are presented as medieval people of the time felt they were, based on their folk lore and suspicions. There is an abbreviated bestiary in the core rules which is expanded upon in sourcebooks. However, you can also access a medieval bestiary here.

I terms of playable races, it is mostly and fairly firmly based on playing human characters as default, noting that Wizards are a bit unearthly anyway (as members of the Realm of Magic they are not mundane humans anymore). There are rules for playing Faerie Companions in the supplement I think though - so, in a sense you still get the equivalent of elves and dwarves - but they aren’t like D&D races though. Again, they are based on more researched mythology and more ‘alien'. I think it is conceivable to play something like a Wizard’s Familiar too if you take it as your Companion slot.

 

[schneeland]

Does the Ars Magica Mythic Europe setting have fantasy races and monsters?

Such things exist, but e.g. the elves are much more akin to the creatures from folklore than the classical D&D elves. And as you can see from the table of contents of Ars Magica 4e's Medieval Bestiary, the familiar D&D creatures are rare, and you are much more likely to encounter (and be maimed by) a regular bear than, say, an Owlbear or Direwolf.
IMO it's really more of its own thing. And depending on how much you like low-fantasy, mythical history settings (or not), you will probably enjoy it more or less.