I've wanted to find a gaming group to play Ars Magica for quite a while, but never was able to. I love the concept behind this game, and hope to be able to play it someday.
>>43808061
Bump! I'd like to read stories about playing AM in the troupe style it's meant to be played.
Same here. It looks like 5e is coming to a close, so maybe I'll pitch it to my group for next year's campaign...
Can you run this game if you suck at history? I hate historic settings because there's always an asshole know-it-all at the table who will correct your historical inaccuracies and throw off your game. Fucking nerds
I have never heard of this game, until now, but I play ck2, so this looks really cool.
>>43809630
The books are surprisingly accurate for a fantasy game, so unless you're dealing with an asshole player with a degree in Middle Ages studies, you should be fine.
>>43810047
It's accurate but there's just a short chapter on the Mythic Europe which describes it without going into much details. Also how I imagine a medieval village and the way people dress, live, eat and the how it really happened are probably pretty different. And while nobody I know has a degree in the Middle Ages, we all have our opinions and just general knowledge which might clash with that of another person, unlike with fantasy games where anything goes and disbelief is already suspended.
guy from previous thread here who,s trying to adapt the system to a modern (WWII and cold war) era. wondering if anyone had any ideas for me or just comments, suggestions, etc.
I once wrote a huge sandbox campaign set in the Alps. The players were given an old ruined castle, once owned by another covenant. The plan was for them to start rebuilding their properity, get some mean kind of income and get to know the local covenants, mundane lords and political landscape.
The game fizzled out after two sessions. The players struggled with the rules, one of them told me that he didn't enjoy medieval Europe and the lack of any "direct and solid" plot hooks seemed to throw them off... I might just be bad at running sandbox games. I die a little inside each time I think about all of the time I invested into worldbulding vs how much we played.
>>43809630
Should be pretty easy, just focus more on the magical and supernatural side and stories of Ars Magica, instead of the historical ones?
>>43810189
There are books for each general region, as well as some specific for cities, academia, and the church.
>https://www.mediafire.com/folder/08wq82ppl2713/Ars_Magica
>>43810825
I thought about doing that. I was thinking Ars for a modern urban setting.
The problem I run in to is time. Part of the whole focus of Ars is how much time it takes to do stuff. Messing with that, I think, would really set things off - give the wrong feel.
The problem is that if you let things take as long as they do in the book - you end up with a super rapid world that changes around the players. Set your game in the 60's for cold war era stuff? Sure, but it will be the 80's before your players hardly do anything if they do any construction or study.
In medieval settings it isn't that big of a deal if even a hundred years pass. But now days, even a few years can mean huge changes.
Imagine a modern day urban setting. The game starts in 2015. The first thing they do is take ten years to develop some spells etc. Now it is 2015, what has changed around them?
If you shorten up the time requirements for stuff, how does that change everything?
>>43813548
i'd make it take still a while, but much shorter
Say for example new spells, instead of your example of ten years, they'd take half a year and come up with similar results or whatever (havnt delved too deeply into the whole lab section yet)
in the middle of the cold war or WWII, half a year can mean dramatic changes and would give drastic new situations for the players i think
ofc that changes radically the pace from the real game, but that's to be expected isnt it?
>>43813636
I guess so.
But, to my mind, it does push just how powerful the upper scale of mages will be.
It just seems like we are going to be in a position that this stuff would take weeks or months. Which then begs the question, what about mages that do take a decade to do this stuff? What if the players do decide to do so?
>>43808061
Does anybody have:
Antagonists
Hooks
Tales of Power
The Contested Isles
?
>>43813803
true enough, but that's also why I choose to limit the mages to the PCs and some quite rare NPCs whom I intend to keep busy (mostly by making them important historical persons who can,t afford to disapear for 10 years to master ridiculous magic)
Besides, the players ARE going to be stupidly powerful, in a world that's still reeling from the reappearance of magic and it's extreme rareness, kinda like how the skavens arn't believed to really exist unless you KNOW and/or have seen one
I always want to /v/ this motherfucker. It's all so systemic and constantly makes me think of things like Master of Magic.
>(BUMP)<
>>43809630
The solution to that is: make the history nerd GM. If they're any good it'll add a lot to the game.
But seriously you don't need to worry about historical accuracy, and 5e core goes out of the way to make this clear. It's nice to do a little research to cultivate a mediaeval feel and emphasise that it isn't a generic D&D world, but you can get into the swing of thing just by watching some movies set in olden days. Unless your game is extremely political you don't need to worry about who's on throne, what the latest ecclesiastical council has declared or who's invading whom in any given year.
>>43811107
That sucks dude. If you have all that prep you can always give it another shot down the line. Ars does require a very particular set of expectations, and I wouldn't blame people for not buying into it, but there's always people online who are looking to get into a game.
>>43810189
>>43812756
City and Guild, Art and Academe, Lords of Men and The Church are fantastic primers for how it was in 13th century (Western) Europe. That's a lot of reading, but if you're like me who gives up halfway through any serious nonfic book but can read RPG supplements all day they're a godsend, and genuinely entertaining. The description of mediaeval natural philosophy in A&A is fascinating and not the kind of history you'd normally be exposed to.
bump for underrated game
