AM as solo game?

Hi all,

Been absent for a time from the forums. I might be starting up a new game of Ars. The catch: It will likely be a solo game. That is, one player and one SG. Each of us will be making a mage and a companion.
In your experience, does Ars lend itself reasonably well to a solo saga? I imagine it'd work better than say D&D, sicne there's less party balance to worry about. I know there's much that's lost with the covenant charter design, magi interaction, problem-solving, etc. Is it still viable?

I think it has a better chance than most systems in part because there is already an expectation of players taking on multiple characters. What do you envision as the focus of this game?

There might be still campaigns which introduce magi with, or play e. g. initiations as, solo adventures. And troupes can send a single magus with an entourage of companions on adventures, too. So yes, ArM is a game quite apt for one-on-one play.

Cheers

Thanks all!

Long story short: The character will be 2 years past gauntlet. They will be a chapter house of Fengheld, restarting an old abandoned covenant in the Black Forest. Heavy focus on exploration, some combat, dealing with faeries, and the initial few sessions will be around exploring the covenant itself.

I've found ArM to work very well as a two-player game, with one player (usually with multiple characters at once) and one storyguide (with or without some of his/her own characters as "backup"). It works well for switching roles back and forth too, when both players are comfortable with being SG.

Having the SG with at least one allied character around is very useful. It provides a way to have in-character discussion for things which would normally be discussed among players "alone" - that way, the SG has another avenue to drop hints or other guidance when the player encounters multicast, high-penetration Wall of Stifled Creative Thought.

The group combat rules are great for you. Take a gang of identical Grogs along, make sure your Companion has Leadership and a combat skill, and you can take on some pretty tough challenges all by your lonesome.

I prefer to have my grogs tiered- first row sword and shield, second tier great weapons third tier archers, establish a shield wall and you can set up an impressive kill zone...

Ars works well as a solo game. A magus plus a few grogs can be a realistic group in this game. A seeker, for example, investigating old ruins and ancient magics can be used to play a cool "indiana jones" saga, for example. I see nop special problem with any other character concept, really. It will be simply that your covenant will be small, but there are no problems at all with that.

Given how secretive and closed many groups, Houses, Mystery Cults are about their secrets it is often problematic running stories for several magi about these things. Especially since most sags feature a great variety of Houses chosen for characters. So I think this solo thing can work wonderfully well for ArM, as other posters before me have remarked as well.

I and another player in our larger Ars group have been running solo stories for I think about two years now. We are rewarded by knowing our characters extremely well and getting to grasp our world with more detail.

For a while we played one day a week and then larger group played twice a month.

Granted we gave each other NO XP for the gaming nor Confidence points, we simply did it for fun, and it was rewarding. I can see how running a actual story this way could be extremely fun and interesting as you can take turn exploring what each other want for the world they create.

The freedom always detailed stories and tailored made arcs that both will enjoy playing.