(OT) Ars Magica

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I find myself growing bored with D&D, and I'm looking for something different. With that in mind, I saw some reviews of Ars Magica. The game seems very, very cool.

Would anyone recommend it?

 

[Sammael99]

Ars Magica is really a great game. Be warned that it can only be played in a campaign style, or the whole mood of the game can't shine through.

If you're willing to experiment a little bit, it will really make you discover new RPing techniques as well...

 

[Patrick-S&S]

I find myself growing bored with D&D, and I'm looking for something different. With that in mind, I saw some reviews of Ars Magica. The game seems very, very cool.Would anyone recommend it?

I would if you are looking for not only a different game but also a different way of gaming. However if you are only looking for a game that is different and yet has the same medieval feel why not try out HârnWorld and HârnMaster? Here are some great links for you to enjoy...

http://www.swordsandshields.org/
http://www.shadowharn.net/
http://www.harnlink.com/
http://www.columbiagames.com/

Hârn is a more mundane world and not much different from Ars Magica. It has far better maps though.

 

[Tsyr]

You need new maps for Ars Magica?

 

[ùìéè äîáåê]

Ars

I could use some maps for Ars Magica

It is a great game, but personally I find it more "intensive": D&D for me is more "light", with Ars Magica I just feel I need to make everything more historically true, more realistic, so it requires more time. Maybe it's just my D&D childhood games shining through.
Also the game does not lend itself to "adventuring" style play, only to location-based campaigns with plenty of down-time. Be warned, character development takes years of in-game time.

 

[Patrick-S&S]

You need new maps for Ars Magica?

No of course not but how much more doesn't a map add to the RPG experience? If you took a look at my site or any other Hârn site, you would be awed of the quality of the maps. Now I do not mean to brag but maps do make a difference and I have made quite a few, some official and published as well. They could be used with any RPG Game.

 

[JohnNephew]

No of course not but how much more doesn't a map add to the RPG experience?

Fortunately, libraries and bookstores are full of maps of historical Europe. This removes a lot of the incentive for us, as publisher of Ars Magica, to produce a whole lot of maps duplicating what you can already get out in the general market. Besides modern maps drawn with historical information (e.g., political maps of Europe in the 12th century), it's also possible to find coffee table books and scholarly books reproducing ancient maps (the world as people thought it was!). Some of my favorite maps are in the "Facts on File" books -- e.g., the Atlas of the Crusades.

If maps really push your gaming button, Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting is about as good as it gets, given that you have available to you all the maps of historical Europe published over the years... ;-)

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Take a look at Arrowflight:

http://www.deep7.com/games/arrowflight/index.html


Two reviews at RPG.net:

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_6212.html

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_6297.html


If it sounds fun to you, then it will be.

 

[Nikchick]

I find myself growing bored with D&D, and I'm looking for something different. With that in mind, I saw some reviews of Ars Magica. The game seems very, very cool.

Would anyone recommend it?

Ars Magica is my first love, and remains one of my favorite games of all time. The thing to remember about Ars Magica is that the game is balanced in a very different way than D&D. The game is not balanced on a character by character level, but as another posted said, on a campaign-level. I know several people who have tried the game and come up with "fixes" for the intentional power-level inequalities, but that really misses one of the strongest aspects of the game. Ars Magica lets you build really subtle characters, with lots of unobvious strengths, but if you're forced into playing the bookish non-combatant *every* game (no matter how illogical it would be for him to be dragging around the wilderness hunting magical wolves with mages that can cast fireballs at will) the internal balance of the game is upset and it doesn't show off all the very cool things inherent to the system.

I strongly recommend that everyone start play with one Grog and either one magical Companion or a Magus, and then mix and match the party make-up on an adventure-by-adventure basis. (This assumes starting with smallish adventures that take only a session or two to resolve, while everyone gets a chance to settle into their various characters and to enjoy the strengths and weaknesses of each).

Nicole

 

[Patrick-S&S]

If maps really push your gaming button, Ars Magica's Mythic Europe setting is about as good as it gets, given that you have available to you all the maps of historical Europe published over the years... ;-)

He he he.... I have that one John and I must say that while the Hotz map, my former mentor (I have his job now as mapper for Columbia Games), is awesome I prefer REAL maps such as those found in HârnWorld modules (I have created the ones in the three latest releases). Hell I have even created a few maps based in England during Richard Plantaget's era by using real world maps as base. I use maps at all my gaming sessions (we game Hârn exclusively for now...) and it does add to the experience.