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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Laslo Tremaine" data-source="post: 1301984" data-attributes="member: 330">Here's how it's worked the the campaigns that I have been involved with.First thing.  Make the covenant:  In Ars, the covenant is the main character of the saga, so it's pretty key that you have all the basics fleshed out in advance. The covenant rules in the 4th ed book will get you started.Second. Make characters:•Everyone makes a Magus: As has been said above, you will not always be playing your Magus. They will often be in the lab studying books, researching new spells, creating magic items or investigating something.•Everone makes a Companion:  The important thing to get your head around here is that these characters are companions to the covenant, not your magus. They will be the skilled normals (or not so normal as the case may be) who, for whatever, reason have allied themselves with the covenant.  They often end up representing the covenant's interests to the outside world (remember that most magi have a disturbing aura and don't get along well with mundanes).  Also keep in mind that your magus and your companion characters will pretty much never be "on screen" at the same time.•Every one makes a number of Grogs:Grogs are the support staff of the covenant.Make a couple grogs and give each one an easily identifiable quirk or roleplaying handle.  Everyone will end up running these characters, so paint them with large bold strokes.  One memorable grog from a previous saga had the delusion that his shield was magical.  He went out of his way to interpose it between magi and danger.  He carefully polished it, and even spoke to it (the fact that everyone seemed to make amazing defense rolls with that character was just an amusing twist of luck).  Now whenever anyone picked up that character they had a handle on how to play him. Unlike companions, each Magus has a "Shield Grog", this is a warrior who is a personal bodyguard for that particular Magus.  This grog's duty is to interpose themself between the Magus and danger (giving the Magus time to cast spells).  In our campaigns the player of the magus usually creates and runs his own shield grog.Also, with grogs, keep in mind that they don't just have to be spear carriers and shield holders.  You can have the sneaky grog scout, the grog chiurge (medic), etc.  Grogs can even fill roles like cook, senechal, stable boy, or even librarian.  We had a librarian grog in one saga that was super protective of his books ("those high-falutin' magi can never be expected to show the proper respect to a book! Always leaving them open and spilling various foul concotions in them!  Deplorable!").So in play here's how it's worked for us.  First we decide which one (or posiblly two) Magi are best suited to the task at hand.  Are they going to talk to the fey?  Well then you would obviously send the Merinita Maga.  Are they going to deal with that pesky bishop?  Send the Jerbiton.  Going down into an abandoned silver mine?  Well the Terram expert would probably be a likely candidate. As far as companions and grogs go, you have a choice.  You can either have every other player run their companion and then spread the grogs out evenly amongst the players.  Or you can have one person run all the grogs and have the remainder run their companion characters. It really makes no difference and you will find whatever combination works best for your group.As far as multiple GMs go, it can be tricky.  What we have found to work is to have an Alpha Storyguide (they will set up the basics and have some over arching story ideas), and then have the other people pick a realm to deal with.  One person can run fey related stuff, one can run the nobilty, one can run the church, etc.  Make sure that if you have a Merinita Magus (fey mage) that they are not the ones running the Fey, likewise if you have a Jerbiton, do not let them run the nobility.  Like others have said, this takes a level of trust and the ability to let go and let the other storyguides go where they want, but over-all a good Ars Magica saga is a wonderous thing!</blockquote>

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