My name is David, and I am new to the forums and to Ars Magica in general. I recently downloaded the free Ars Magica 4th Edition Core Rulebook from e23. After reading and falling in love with it I became hungry to find a gaming group that plays Ars Magica.
Unfortunately, nobody where I live has even heard of the game. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations where I could find people who play Ars Magica online? Failing that, does anyone run a group in Toronto, Ontario, Canada?
Salve! Welcome to the game, and to these boards! Many players started out w/ the free 4th ed - but 5th has much more support, both in fanbase and available supplements. (Just so you know.)
If you go to the main board index (nav from top-left of any page - "Board index") and scroll down, you'll find several play-by-post games currently run here, along w/ dedicated sub-forums for GM's and Players both to advertise. (Don't know about any 4th ed games atm one way or the other - you'd have to ask there).
Off this site, RPoL is one of the more active online pbp RP'ing sites, and has an active core of AM fans. Free, no spam, no scam. Be sure to specify 4th ed. http://rpol.net
Then there's always the Project Redcap site - fansite w/ links to all kinds of stuff, inc. on-line games. http://www.redcap.org/page/overview
That should keep you busy until someone else chimes in.
I beg to differ about the 5th edition. Doing my own little research, I think the 4th edition is backward-compatible with the 2nd and 3rd editions, and on e23 there are more resources for the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd editions together than there are for the 5th edition.
That said, I do believe that it has a much bigger fan-base (on these forums anyway; I do not think I've seen anything in the PbP boards except the 5th edition).
Wow, Project Redcap is very overwhelming for a beginner. And RPoL is a little awkward for me to operate until I figure it out. But, thanks for the heads up!
puts on his Librarian glasses and goes to work 8)
UPDATE: The only games of Ars Magica on RPoL are all 5th edition. I signed up and posted an advertisement, but I am not sure if it will work.
Not...exactly. The whole chapter on how to learn things is fundamentally different in 4th, compared to earlier editions.
4th edition (IME) lead to exremely powerful characters - especially compared to previous editions.
I think almost all of us can recommend 5th edition though. It's that good.
What? I do not know what you are talking about. The original comment was how 5th edition had more support. I countered it with the fact that 5th edition was not made to be backward-compatible with earlier editions, unlike 4th edition, which means it would therefore have less support. It sounds pretty logical, if you ask me.
I am very glad you recommend it; however, unless you also want to purchase it for me I do not think I will be moving to 5th edition so quickly.
I know what you mean - I fought 5th for a long time, but then bit the bullet when I found an online deal - never looked back. (You can find it for under $15 for used, and under 25 new. I won't argue whether that's "practically free", but it's not that painful by any measure.)
He's not commenting on that, but your "backward compatible" statement. No edition is perfectly b-c to earlier, and 4th had some radical changes over 3rd as I remember. Spell builds and magnitudes were radically changed, as was combat, experience, reading & writing, covenants - and that's just the game mechanics, before any social/world changes to canon (which were at least as radical in some cases).
May appear backwards compatible, and the older modules & books are still great inspiration, but they do require more than a little translation to actually be true to 4th ed.
(Also - find online the (strongly!) suggested changes to the larger holes in 4th ed, esp the new PeIm guidelines. Not that many changes/holes to fill, but almost universally agreed as "much better". I know links used to exist on that Project Redcap site.)
I'll be coming to Montreal at the end of this year, so I'll have a similar problem to yours...
I'm afraid I can't help you beyond what's already been said. I too highly recommend 5th edition, but there is no denying that 4th edition has a huge advantage in being free. And it's fun to play, although I can only concur with Cuchulainshound's suggestion to find 4e house rules/changes to tweak it.
RPoL was a bust. I am currently on the search for another place.
UPDATE: I am actually currently setting up the Promises, Promises scenario on RPoL. I figure if I cannot find a ArM4 game, why not make one myself that is friendly to new players.
The advantage of 5th Ed is that it is the version sold in your FLGS, so it might be easier to find players with a currently available book rather than even a free PDF. Doesnt matter too much either way, but I wound up using for my first game just the 5th Ed core and 3 Tribunal books for setting - the 4th Ed Heirs of Merlin (very good), 5th Ed Lion & the Lily (pretty good) and the 3rd Ed Lion of the North (generally a bit rubbish, but I wanted to blow bits up of it).
But ruleswise, if its your first game, I would recommend ignoring (or at least not using in play) any of the rules supplments and just focus on the core rulebook. You can add complexity later, but the first game will have enough anyway as you master the system.
