I remember being in awe of it in my early gaming days.
So, who's played it? Is it any good?
I tried to get into it but the setup and delivery were very complicated. The artwork was wonderful, really atmospheric, and the background details of medieval Europe were stunning, especially the big map just inside the front cover, but technically the system itself was a bit forced, and the magic system was a real brow-knuckler. And I'd be better at Latin than average. Maybe I was just having a busy week.
They say its the base upon which Mage was built, but I'd rather use it as an (excellent) reference book than as a game.
I've played a few campaigns of it. I thought the basic system works quite well, and I thought the system for covenant development (i.e. the group) is great.
The magic system is complicated, but that's kind of the point. Magi are super-powerful and magic is an involved system.
(SIDE NOTE: The connection between Ars Magica and Mage: The Ascension was only created in 3rd edition after Ars Magica was acquired by White Wolf. In the first two editions, there was no sign of the M:tA cosmology - the idea that belief creates reality, say, and the magic systems are wholly different. 3rd ed created a few post-hoc connections, but they are mostly unrelated.)
Quote from: The Butcher;554777I remember being in awe of it in my early gaming days.
So, who's played it? Is it any good?
We played it doing the whole rotating GM thing, worked well. The fact you had a pool of PCs really takes the edge of the huge wizard superiority.
It seems to be more aimed at the set that like bookkeeping games rather than ad-hoc stuff, if that is an issue.
I found the basic magic system in the main rulebook quite straightforward, very well thought out, and perfectly suited to the setting. What got complicated were all of the extra magic sub-systems which kept getting added on with every supplement, but those were optional, so it was really a question of how much detail you wanted to go into WRT magic in your campaign.
I've played it on and off since its 2E days (they're now on 5E.)
It has an elegant magic system, a fun setup (troupe play--where each wizard can be the "star" and have friends and allies with him who aren't wizards.) It allows for a larger story about the Covenant to be detailed and creates a lot of fun social interactions with the Magical-Medieval world.
It has a few flaws--some snuck in during the White Wolf/3E Era. They've mostly been squashed, but a few linger.
The dice mechanic could be simplified a bit, its a bit odd--functional, but odd. Since dice are read different ways depending on potential importance of failure/botches.
It requires a little more bookkeeping than a lot of other games. (I'd say comparable to D&D3E.)
Its an awesome game, with one of gaming's best fun and flavorful magic systems.
I suggest picking up the latest edition for the best version of the rules, and cleaning up of some of the old cruft from White Wolf days.
Never cared for it at all.
RPGPundit
What do you actually do in Ars Magica?
Quote from: Killfuck Soulshitter;555366What do you actually do in Ars Magica?
...you quest for
Vis (physical magic energy).
... you battle fierce monsters from European mythology.
... you scheme and plot with, or against, the other Covenants.
... you explore Medieval Europe.
... you conduct diplomacy and negotiation within the Order of Hermes.
... you build your Covenant over a period of many years; from a small fledgling tower with only a few rookie wizards to a big powerful group, packed with power, mundane and magical.
... and you bookkeep quite a lot, if you like that kinda thing.
Building and defending your covenant mostly. Finding new sources of Vis and other resources, negotiating with temporal authorities, fighting back incursions of the Fae.
Imagine a magical community. How will its members try to make it better? How can you make it worse?
I still bring out my 3rd Edition rules (my edition of choice, and the best looking IMO) once in a while and consider running some Ars Magica and occasionally pick up an old supplement if I find them cheap at conventions or on Ebay.
My biggest problem is, that I don't know many gamers who's got the patience for a long, and slow moving, campaign, like Ars Magica really calls for, bookkeeping and all.
I've run a short campaign some years ago, build around a Covenant i Ireland, but now, as Tour De France has just started, with all it's impressive helicopter shots of the big French forests and mountains and all the old castles, I really want to run it in Central Europe.
Yes, my gripes is mostly with most of the other stuff beside the spellcasting and laboratory rules. Those could roll much smoother.
I really like it. The core mechanics are simple. The magic system is complex, but provides incredible versatility once you get a handle on it. Wizards and non-wizards are also inherently balanced, because you get a wizzie, companion and grogs as part of your troupe of characters anyway, and the XP system is so slow that a wizzie who wants to be a wizzie is going to have bunches of glaring weaknesses.
I'll state again: the magic system is amazing. If you're coming into it from a spell-list background, it's going to look really overwhelming, but it really provides a structure for creativity; the method/art spell structure makes a lot of sense once you're familiar with the meanings. It is also necessary for the game; the spell system is presented in very, very similar ways both IC and OOC. It wouldn't adapt well, as written, to any other setting; but an "Ars Magica Modern", with an updated arts list, could be fun.
We play corebook 4th. I don't know or really care about any of the other editions or supplements. I think it benefits from a GM with some knowledge of the time period, but because it's not our past, it's a separate timeline with similarities to ours, you'd get on fine without that.
I'd love to see an Ars Magica type OSR game. Using D&D rules, and bumping up magic-user's power levels. It would need rules for running a covenant and other political situations added in, but otherwise, I think it would be very doable.
Maybe give spell bonuses based on how much vis your covenant controls, or make it like the ley line walkers in Palladium, who get big boosts while on a ley line.
Oh yeah, libraries and their use are extremely important in this game, which I think is really cool.
Quote from: danbuter;555411I'd love to see an Ars Magica type OSR game. Using D&D rules, and bumping up magic-user's power levels. It would need rules for running a covenant and other political situations added in, but otherwise, I think it would be very doable.
Not to spin this away from Ars Magica, but maybe this book in the new LotFP fundy campaign (http://www.indiegogo.com/LotFPBaker) is actually doing this? I know Baker is a total no-no for some people around here, but who gives a fuck about that, and the idea sounds ok and quite covenant-like.
I had some of the books, and I thought the setting was very interesting, but I couldn't get into playing it. That's probably more about me than anything else, since I rarely play a Mage/Wizard/Sorcerer/Magic-User, and that's really the entire point of the game.
Quote from: danbuter;555411I'd love to see an Ars Magica type OSR game. Using D&D rules, and bumping up magic-user's power levels. It would need rules for running a covenant and other political situations added in, but otherwise, I think it would be very doable.
Maybe give spell bonuses based on how much vis your covenant controls, or make it like the ley line walkers in Palladium, who get big boosts while on a ley line.
Oh yeah, libraries and their use are extremely important in this game, which I think is really cool.
I think you'd get a vastly different game feel - AM wizards can, theoretically, cast all day, and the custom-casting mechanic means you can act in the
now rather than necessarily having to plan a day in advance, which is handy because any magical opponent you face will also be custom-casting...). Not sure how you'd represent that in the TSR D&D rule set; maybe allow on-the-fly expenditure of vis to add 3.x metamagic abilities, retain spells after casting, or cast higher-level spells.
You should probably also adjust the XP tables to further slow down wizard progression. I think a skill mechanic would also be nice. I'd also keep troupe play, so the wizards explicitly have hangers-on who they
have to rely on at times. And keep casting time and spell disruption rules.
But all the above said, you would need rules for spell development and book learning, because that's the biggest thing about the covenant structure, I feel. No spell list is really big enough to replicate AM.
Sounds like you'd have a great game on your hands.