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Jenn
2014-07-11, 06:52 PM
I recently received the Ars Magica rulebook, as well as some of the core supplements for my birthday. I am interested in putting together a game for when our group reconvenes after our summer break, so I have started reading through it to familiarize myself with it. Does anyone know of any good resources, either video or web community based that would give me an idea of what a game is like when it's played?

Thanks in advance!

JusticeZero
2014-07-11, 10:35 PM
Well, for one thing, the book says that you will make three tiers of character. Take this seriously. Mages are mostly doing slow development over time of their home base and personal skills, and rarely go out adventuring. That's what the second and third tier characters are for. The magi are actually ending up being closer to your Secret Council of Vagueness planning and organizing things.
Second, the book talks about how the mages will be jointly setting things up. This is also important; if you get a setting given to you, you will eventually be chafing at it, and won't even be able to blame yourself.
Our game structure round-robined episodic games. We underbuilt the companions, using them as resources instead of away team types, and as a result, sometimes people were unable to participate in the game at all because they didn't have an appropriate character. In the end, we were strongly considering restarting in a different campaign centered around a party of apprentices, so that we would be better able to organically create a more coherent base of operations.
We had each short adventure, about one session each, take place over one season (3 months). This was actually much more compressed of a timescale than was comfortable for our purposes at times.

Arcane_Snowman
2014-07-12, 12:18 AM
I've been thinking of making a youtube series that focuses around this, but unfortunately I haven't finished it. But I can give you some cliff notes:

The covenant is the magi's base of operation, and as such is a grounding force in that it keeps the magi together, but also allow them to do their own thing individually and this is, I believe, incredibly important as not every adventure is interesting to a given character. Ars is not necessarily a game with a single overarching storyline, the Journey to Mount Doom or somesuch, it's more personal in nature, like one of those terrible drama TV shows, it’s literally the Wizards of our Lives (not necessarily with as much drama), as there’s never the happily ever after.

As such not all characters participate in the adventure every time, but every play should be, through the use of Companions or Grogs. Think of it this way: The magi are your protagonists, to continue with my TV show analogy, they're the James T. Kirks/Picards of the story, Companions the well known minor characters, and the Grogs, redshirts.

This makes the game a wonderful baseline for a sandbox game. You can scatter various plot hooks around the land and the players can get to them in time, or not, depending on preference. And as the games advancement system uses time, you can evolve the magi's backlands as they change things: Did they save a young lady from a faerie inflicted poison? Well, now she has grown into the heiress of the lands and are feeling greatly indebted to them, and is using some of that influence to aide them.

I agree to some degree with Justice Zero, being a mage is in part about being an administrator, but the mages themselves both can and should do some adventuring, but their power comes more from preparation than anything else, so if you put too much of a time constraint on them they're less likely to succeed. For example: the magi come up against a ghost in swamp, which chases them out because they have no way of properly affecting it, so they retreat to the covenant and start developing some spells to do so, and eventually come back and give it a good whooping. .

You can also check out the Atlas-Games forums (http://forum.atlas-games.com/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=27886a958d39f9a5185e2c4d0eff5e6c) for some more details. There's a great deal of Ars enthusiasts.

BWR
2014-07-12, 03:21 AM
Remember that the Covenant is the main character of the game. All others are supporting characters. Make sure the players understand this and are ok with it. This isn't, or at least shouldn't be, D&D where you have at best a home base you retire to after adventuring all around the world. The Covnenant is where you spend most of your time and it's in everyone's interest that it runs smoothly.

Magi want to stay locked up in their lab and study. Adventure xp is in almost every instance less valuable than study xp, at least if you have proper books to read. Getting magi out of their labs can be a pain. If you want to have adventures based around them, don't expect them to go out and find stuff on their own, you will most likely have to use a crowbar to get them out.
Companions are more likely to see a lot of action, especially if built right. Magi don't want to be bothered with the daily problems of running the Covenant, which is why you have mundanes.

Learn the awesomeness of Grogs. All characters in AM are fairly disposable but Grogs exist to be disposed of. This means you can do so much with them that you would be unwilling to do with either your own character or with your player's characters. Give them fun personalities, quirks, get them in stupid situations that cause problems (stories), allow them to get hurt or die. Some of our Grogs saw more playtime and character development than some of the Magi because they were so fun.

Story Virtues and Flaws are the best. There are a lot of decent and powerful mechanical V&Fs but Story ones create, well, stories. Encourage players to take at least one and use them for all they're worth.

endoperez
2014-07-12, 03:50 AM
The three tiers of character thing is a bit tricky. You don't want to have everyone make three characters before the first session. You probably don't want to have everyone turn up to a game with their mage characters, because playing as the mage communicates "I want to play as someone powerful, someone who matters" - and it's hard to be powerful when everyone else is also powerful.

I started my campaign with a series of one-shots. Always one wizard, then a companion or two and some grogs.

A mage is traveling through a forest, accompanied by a mercenary captain (companion), a weird elf-touched person with second sight (companion) and some mercenaries (grogs, including a player-controlled one).

A mage is tracking a magical wolf, and hires some villagers to help him. The fat priest, the shepherd who is always telling stories of magical things, and the innkeeper each had their own ways of controlling the mob of villagers. The wizard didn't.

It should be clear to all players that this isn't the whole campaign, it's just a one-shot. It should also be clear that they have different power levels, all are not equal, but that those roles can be changed next game. As long as everyone has fun the first few times, they shouldn't have a problem carrying it on in the future - or if they don't, then at least they're happy with the status quo. After a few games like that, you can bring the characters together, and the game can transition into a covenant-based play where time passes between adventures. I'm in the process of doing that right now.

LibraryOgre
2014-07-12, 03:05 PM
I recently received the Ars Magica rulebook, as well as some of the core supplements for my birthday. I am interested in putting together a game for when our group reconvenes after our summer break, so I have started reading through it to familiarize myself with it. Does anyone know of any good resources, either video or web community based that would give me an idea of what a game is like when it's played?

Thanks in advance!

There used to be a very active Ars Magica listserv that was wonderful for this. I have a few sample characters up on my old web page... both my old Ars Magica page (http://editors-wastebasket.org/nexx/ars.html) and the Play by Remote (http://editors-wastebasket.org/nexx/pbr.html) page.

While several people have mentioned the troupe-style play (where, in many games, your magus will be accompanied by other players companions and grogs), I'll add an important bit... make sure your magus doesn't mesh most naturally with your companion. Instead, have them mesh with the companions and magus of other players. That way, they can be played together.

For example, you might make a Jerbiton magus who has fingers in a lot of local political pies (naughty, naughty). If someone is going to make a local knight companion who runs in those same circles, it shouldn't be you. It should be Bob. Meanwhile, your companion is a faerie-blooded minstrel who hangs out a lot with Lisa's Merinita maga. This means that your various characters have interconnections between players, and gives you more opportunities. Though not strictly necessary, I suggest making the grogs as a group, and use them to balance the party a bit. (You'll note my grog, Ferdinand de Palma, is the leader of a group of mercenaries; everyone could pick up one of them when they needed someone to fit in the story).

In a sense, you're not just making one "party"... you're making several adventuring parties, each based around a central magus, and sharing a covenant.

Tyrrell
2014-07-13, 07:40 AM
The Ars Magica boards (http://forum.atlas-games.com/viewforum.php?f=4) on the Atlas site gets 10 -30 posts a day and the community is really nice, at least half of the authors hang out there.

There are also a number of play by post games on the atlas boards that you could peruse.

Project Redcap (http://www.redcap.org/page/Main_Page) has links to saga pages that you might read through to see how other people's sagas have gone.

Here's Tim Ferguson's simplified introduction to the game (http://timothyferguson.wordpress.com/ephemera/ars-magica-ephemera/ars-magica-simplified-introduction/) (I just found it when searching for something else, so I haven't read it yet. But he is an excellent author responsible for many of my favorite chapters in fifth edition)

Here's CJ Romer's advice for new storyguides (http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/running-ars-magica-advice-for-new-story-guides-part-one/) (He's also an Ars Magica author).

What I was looking for was a web based hermetic magic tutorial I've seen. I'll post again when I find it.

Tyrrell
2014-07-13, 08:10 AM
I still haven't found the tutorial but here is the Ars Magica wiki (http://arsmagica.wikia.com/wiki/Ars_Magica_Wiki)
and I might as well link the zines as well
Sanctum Hermeticum (http://www.geocities.ws/sanctumhr/index-2.html) a web zine
and the not quite quarterly but very well done pdf zine Sub Rosa (http://www.subrosamagazine.org/)

Tyrrell
2014-07-13, 08:35 AM
I believe that this was it: http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/about-my-hobby-for-non-gamers-an-introduction-to-the-5th-edition-ars-magica-roleplaying-game/

It is just a slideshow that tries to get the reader thinking in terms of the mechanics ASAP. It is a system introduction for new players

Jenn
2014-07-19, 08:08 PM
Thanks folks! I just got back from a trip and was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of you offering help! I will let you all know how it turns out!