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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wombat" data-source="post: 1406512" data-attributes="member: 8447">My best game was my second Ars Magica campaign.  We had really gotten the hang of the rules and the possiblities and we just went to town.The game started with myself as SG and four players; two other players were added later on.  Each player created the standard Magus and Companion, along with 2 Grogs (all this terminology makes sense if you have the game; otherwise I point you towards RPGNow, where you can download the entire set of rules for free!).  Most importantly the players truly got into character.  The game lasted four real-time years, but over 45 game-time years.  Only one of the original Companions and a handful of the original Grogs were still alive at the end of the campaign, but they were, by then, background characters, no longer physically vital.  One of the Magi had died, but the others had become seriously powerful, as well as seriously eccentric.  Equally, each of them now had "children", apprentices who had become Magi themselves, some of whom who had, in turn, trained apprentices of their own.  We kept a "graveyard" for the Covenant.  Each character who died had a small entry on a list  that we constantly updated.  Some entries were simple:  "John the Large.  Custos.  Died 1193".  Others were much more elaborate:  "At this site lies the mortal remains of Dalton d'Erdelle, master swordsman, famous wit, having passed 39 mortal years in this veil of tears.  It Wasn't His Fault.  God rest him."  Every few sessions one of the players would read out the entire list, again reinforcing the sense of community that we all felt.Storylines were both short and long.  I ran solo adventures for characters when the players wanted to explore some aspect of these characters.  When one of my players had to go to Taiwan for a year, we sent regular letters back and forth -- his charcter went on a long mystical pilgrimmage and returned years later a decidedly different person, but with a deep backstory to explain it.Players wrote letters to NPCs and kept ahold of the ones they recieve in return.  They got involved in quirky experiments.  They even, after one very long session (9+ hours straight), I packed up and went home ... only to meet one of the players the next day with a long document -- the charter of the covenant, along with a long series of amendments.  Yes, the players had continued the game FOR SIX MORE HOURS AFTER I LEFT!As a group of friends and gamers, we had a truly amazing experience.  When the game finally reached an appropriately apocalyptic ending, one of the Magi sacrificed himself for the good of the greater whole, another broke down in tears over the power of the last episode, and all of us shook hands and hugged when the game was over.  We then toasted Gelwich Covenant, had a communal meal, and talked about our favourite moments in the game.To this day, now nearly 8 years later, we often speak to each other of The Game.It was glorious.</blockquote>

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