Timothy, you DO remember that language is used for calculating writing time for Summae?
Yes they are and yes they should. Not ALWAYS of course. But that depends heavily in what kind of situations a character ends up in, which is totally dependent on what kind of game setting you run with.
Why on earth would it be? RAW-"enticing, fascinating and endearing others to you...on a personal basis".
Language or maybe Charisma(which doesnt exist in RAW) or Etiquette.
On a session to session based count, it happens yes.
The problem with not having it means you get players saving up on XP, quite possible for a LONG time, because they HAVE TO to increase at higher ability scores.
Of course, the one doesnt mean the other must not be allowed.
Doing this means you would have to allow negative scores as well again, and while its not exactly terrible, it allows for a dreadful amount of min-maxing. That pretty much takes you back to 2nd edition style BTW.
I dont really dislike this idea but it IS a munchkins dream for character creation.
And then of course comes the problem with how you set the baseline. For example, for the ability Swim, how DO you decide what the baseline is? For Swim the baseline would be geographically completely different.
I really dont think they are, a "dying breed" that is. Its just that the "entertainment market" has become so freaky HUGE, widespread and diversified that each game or whatever has a harder time getting new players, because there are more fun stuff going around.
Its like how the movie industry is crying about how filesharing is killing them and reducing what people spend on movies, well duh, that totally disregards that what people spend on entertainment overall has increased over the same time, those movies simply just got more competition.
Which is just silly, D&D3E is a great game(after "some" houserule modification at least :mrgreen: ) and frankly its not comparable to AM anyway, not because its better or worse but because its designed for completely different goals. Its plenty fun to go on a dungeon-stomp for an evening or 3 but it has little to nothing in common with playing AM. Just as its a totally different matter to run a campaign in the old LotR RPG(extremely simplified Rolemaster). Or Mechwarrior. Pretending that one is better or "above" the other is just silly.
Different games for different purposes.
I have not read most of the post since I do not have much time. Sorry if I repeat stuff said by other people.
My group(s) have played ars since 3rd edition, with in and out periods. We LIKE the current ability system. I think that a total rework of the abilities is not really necessary. We would certainly appreciate a better definition if what can be done with each ability, and the summing up of several of them (like we already do as a HR) but getting ridf of the system is something we would not appreciate.
What might need to be redone is ability selection at character creation, but that is about it. The ability system as it is is fine. Maybe getting rid of the -3 to the roill if you do not have a certain skill to prevent the "loads of stuyff at level 1" syndrome, but that is it. The extra botch dice are not the problem here.
My own "solution" to that has been to try out having an Ability score of 0 costing 10 XP ( originally 15 ). Get that to get rid of the penalty and then you move on as normal from there. Also with the addition to not have the Score 0 for any ability that is a "main part" of the character, ie magical abilities for magi, combat abilities for soldiers etc...
Dont have a clear verdict on it though but generally it seems to be liked. And it definitely avoids the "lets get all those skills at minimum score". Yes it munches up a bit of XP, but thats mostly offset by our other houserules anyway.
Another simpler way is to still use 3 extra botch dice for score 1. This way no score and score 0/1xp are equivalent for non-asterisked Abilities and score 1 is barely better as only their Specialization will have no extra botch dice. Since players will aim for score 2, you get 1/3 the sprinkle with minimal effect on the game system.
BTW, I cannot find any -3 to roll in RAW. There's no mention in the Ability section. Perhaps it was in ArM4?
That's debatable, after all, you suffer the -3 penalty regardless of your roll (and it will cause you to fail your check an extra 30% of the time - the botch dice never alters your chances of success),
You only suffer the extra botch dice if you roll a zero - and that presumes that it was a stress dice (there is no penalty at all for a simple die roll, although I suspect most GMs would stipulate stress die more regularly for unskilled tests than skilled tests),
And even if true, three extra botch dice is still roughly only +1/3 of an actual botch (sure, you'd rather not have it, but even so it still isn't the end of the world)!
All of that said, I do prefer the botch dice as a solution than the -3 penalty (making failures worse seems right),
I do wonder perhaps if they should be dropped at skill 1 rather than 1XP (or maybe the botch dice should be reduces by XP in the skill so they tail off at 3XP or something (1XP=+2 botch, 2XP=+1 botch, 3+XP=+0 botch dice), or if you want to be really harsh, reduced by the skill level (skill 0=+3 botch, skill 1=+2 botch, skill 2=+1 botch, etc) - an apprentice should botch more often than a journeyman after all), as the current system allowing 1XP to negate the penalty is pretty trivial,
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but going from 1% simple botch to {2.9% simple botch + 0.5% multi-botch} is a big change.
After describing my simple solution above, I thought something similar: +3 botches for no score, +2 botches for score 0, +1 botch for score 1, normal botch for score 2+. A little too complex for my taste but fair enough imo.
1/ a 3.4% chance of a botch may be 3.4x higher than a 1% chance of a botch, but fundamentally it still isn't a very high chance of a botch... And there are many skill for which you are never going to make that many tests with, and for which a 3.4% botch chance is statistically insignificant (are you going to make 100 Ride rolls over a campaign? Maybe, but I suspect in many campaigns you will not)...
2/ a 2.4% increased chance of a botch doesn't really compare to a 30% increased chance of failure (-3 to die roll)... Most players would far rather suffer the former (though that doesn't mean that it isn't a more appropriate penalty anyway), especially in a fight where the consequences of failure might be as bad as a botch anyway... (if failure on a test is going to kill you then how is a botch going to make that any worse? And what about the -3 penalty?)
3/ You are presuming that we started with one botch dice, if we start with three then the proportional rise in chances of a botch begins to slide (instead of tripling the odds of a botch, we are instead roughly doubling them),
4/ While multi-botches are a consideration, the chances of them occurring are still extremely slim (a 0.5% chance of a multi-botch is trivial compared to a 30% increased chance of failure),
and 5/ If you where rolling a simple dice instead of a stress dice (and the unskilled bit doesn't mention restricting you to stress dice at all) then the -3 penalty is still a penalty. The botch dice don't hurt you at all,
Just to be clear - I think the botch dice work better in-game than the -3 penalty ever did. But even a quick look at the numbers shows that the -3 penalty was much worse than the botch dice are,
It's even worse than that. Between an Easy and an Average task, that -3 reduces your chance of success by a factor of 3-5. For instance, you have 38% to roll 7+ but 6.9% to roll 10+.
I agree with the rest. It was more the "+1/3" that I didn't understand.
I see - it was "plus about one-third of a botch" because three extra botch dice are worth about one-third of an actual botch (30% if you wish to be pedantic ),
Likewise - it's just one of those niggling issues, minor though it is...
I try not to refer to the first zero as a botch (because it may not be a botch yet, it just creates the opportunity for a botch to occur), but in practice it gets called a botch along with any zeroes resulting from botch dice rolls...
It most certainly is. Granted, my experience was with at least one experienced player guiding a group of four others, but CharGen took only about 15 minutes.
First off, I kind of likes third edition. Sure, it had flaws that I am glad to see have been chiseled away, but it was still a lot of fun and it successfully captured the imagination.
Second, you sir are a cold hearted capitalist, and obviously see no importance in staying true to a fanbase that has supported this game for well over a decade.
Loyalty is important, more so than money. Loyalty should be rewarded, not punished. I am not saying that Atlas should ignore the bottom line. But if the game turns a profit (and so far ArM5 seems to sell pretty well), then I think it is pretty unethical to alienate loyalty just to increase profit by a few percentage points.
Funny. I have no degree at all, yet I do all three of these things. History is just my hoby. Most of the people who have played with me have no degree in history either. One guy does, he has a Masters in History and Theology. But many others have no experience in the study of history at all. In no way have any of them been intimidated or have had their enjoyment lessened.
And, after gaming with me, I almost always convince them to buy their own books (core rules, their favorite house book, and others that interest them).
So, one loyal fan translates into ten or more paying customers.
In My experience Ars Magica is about average for character generation pasrticularly with an experienced player/gm available to help certainly to produce an interesting and semicompetent character it is easier than GURPS or HERO System. I actually find it easier than 3.5/3/pathfinder D+D but thats becasue I will normally design the character with concept out to level 20 , of course that is pretty much necessary to produce a mechanically effective D+D Character. Storyteller is equally complciated and punishes failure to optimise much more harshly than Ars Magica so a badly designed character there will hamper you for an entire campaign.
Cthulu is easier but then again Cthulu characters have the lifespan of Fruitflies and designing a Cthulu character it is very easy to pick skills which are of no use in the game during the lifespan of your character.
The initial suggestion seems to be moving the abilities to something more similar to the Heroquest model. Moving to the Hero Quest style model is a huge leap as that game plays wildly differently than more conventional RPG's and drives off at least as many players as like it. I played Glorantha set RQ games for many years but Heroquest has driven me to abandon the world or at least stop buying related material, some of the changes suggested in this thread would make me feel that Ars Magica was moving in a similar direction and would I suspect lead me to abandoning it.
On the other hand I am very conservative so may not be the best model of players.
And I think it's important to reiterate that Timothy's original suggestion was around making the Abilities more story-centric, making them more important to the character, the role that character plays, and suggestive of the kind of stories that the players want to play. I think those suggestions come from a really important place and one I'm supportive of. I think I'm too wedded to the Characteristic + Ability Score + Die Roll vs. Ease Factor mechanic to rejig Abilities too much. Either it would take someone braver than me to take a lead on that or we stay with the current model.
There's clearly also a discussion to be had on how any future sixth edition of the game (however far into the future that is) describes Abilities sufficiently such to make each clearly and equally useful, and further how we buy them during character creation and progress them through the game.
I play Ars Magica for the richness of the setting, both in terms of its medieval grounding and the possibilities inherent in its core conceits. I don't think we would (or could, frankly) change the core mechanics enough to stop me playing the game. I mean, even if there were a dice-pool mechanic brought in, or a change to D6, or even abandoned dice altogether, the core game is still there. I still get to play a manipulative Verditius silversmith and pit my wits against my enemies inside and outside my covenant. How I apply his Craft/Profession/Trade: Silversmith skill/ability is secondary to that.
Personally, unless and until I'm convinced otherwise, I think the way to go would be to stick with the core mechanic and just make it work "better", whatever that eventually means. Sometime in the far-flung future.
But that doesn't mean you'll continue to buy the products released, it is perfectly possible to play with older rules. Gods, just search for "oWoD chat" and you'll find tons of places where people do just that, although with World of Darkness.
I remember when L5R tried to go into D20 and then went back to it's own Roll & Keep system; no one cared for L5R with the D20 system, so they abandoned the idea of a radical change.
I have to say I'm in favour of keeping the system as is, with refinements here and there, sure, but no major overhaul.
That all being said, I think the language and parma magica issues are interesting.
For languages, I've considered making them accelerated abilities, with fluency being adjusted to 6-7...
As for parma magica, I like the idea of removing the skill altogether and making it either Formx3, simple TeFo or just Vimx2 (but returning the warping gained by the study of Vim).
To be fair... I probably would. But I take your point.
And I think that's come across quite clearly from a lot of people. As David Chart suggested, if you change the underlying mechanics too far then you're really writing a different game. A recent example is the controversial Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which changed their whole dice mechanic. Some like it and some don't. Is it a change too far? Not sure. I've heard some positive things about it. But I doubt I'd be comfortable about such a sweeping change for Ars Magica.
Right. So within the current framework there is room to play with some of these things. To pull it back to Abilities proper, is there a mechanism that allows the player to focus on the Abilities they want their character to have, the Abilities that differentiate their character, while making them more than just single-dimension cyphers? Probably. But until a sixth edition is actually worked on I doubt we'll arrive at a consensus.
