ArM 6 : A point of conflict model for Ability selection

Games Discussion Ars Magica
81

First, about the idea that putting points into abilities is a vote regarding what stories you want your character involved in. I didn’t give my companion a score of 5 in Single Weapon because I wanted lots of fighting, I gave him a score of 5 in Single Weapon because when fighting occurs, I didn’t want to be helpless. My experience is that GMs don’t only give you adventures where you are good at things, they give you adventures where entertaining things happen, and doing things you are not very good at is often entertaining.

Second, regarding the relative value of Languages and Single Weapon Skill; my Verditius mage is much more interested in learning Occitan than Single Weapon. He wants to build a stained glass window that presents stories from the Bible, both having the figures move and a voice telling the story. As I understand it, that was one of the points of stained glass windows, to help those who couldn’t read learn about God. If he doesn’t speak Occitan, how will he get the window to tell the story properly? Whereas if he was attacked, he would much prefer to go invisible, start casting The Call to Slumber and mostly let the companions and grogs handle it.

Finally, I think it is a mistake to think that simpler character creation leads to more popular games. I love Feng Shui and like Unknown Armies. Are they more popular systems than Ars Magica? It doesn’t seem so. This discussion board is way more active than those, but that may just be because as those games are simpler, they have less rules discussion. However, when I look at sites like Pen and Paper Games and look for what games are looking for people, I see a lot more Ars Magica games than Feng Shui or Unknown Armies or Over The Edge. Not that I see a lot of Ars Magica games, but at least I see a few.

I think this follows from two things. One, I think many people who game enjoy putting effort into the game. They enjoy thinking about their character, considering what he is like, how he could become more powerful and how cool he is. The more complex the rule set, the more they can spend time doing that and the more objective the result seems. For many people, this heightens the enjoyment. Secondly, part of the appeal in table top gaming is social. Having information that those in the group know and talk about and those outside the group are ignorant of is one of the ways social identity is built. This is true for church membership, football fans, people who watch Lost, and so forth. If the activity doesn’t hold enough complexity to distinguish between those who understand and those who don’t, it fails in that respect. Also, if disagreements can be settled by an appeal to an objective standard, (the RAW, the Bible, having the football teams play against each other and see what happens) allows conflict to be handled in a less personal manner. Games which are too simple and leave a lot to the GM’s whim don’t provide this, and will likely be less successful as a result.

82

Major story + major personality + minor hermetic = 7 points of flaws. I somewhat agree in the sense that magi should not join the covenant at creation, but should be introduced by solo-playing their first few years to build their Virtues and Flaws before they join.

Level = magnitude * 5 - 20

Or since you're sponting it, each magnitude is +10 but add 40 to TeFo.

83

CrMe solves the language issue nicely, except for magi.

84

I agree with a lot of the issues raised about complexity. I'd like to see simpler character creation. I also think 10 virtues and flaws can be too many.

What I wouldn't like to see is a thorough revision of the game in order to make these changes. Both of these issues, and most of the others people have been bringing up lately, can be resolved with simple house rules. Maybe Atlas should publish a GM's Guide with sets of options like this. If GM Guides really don't sell, which I've been told before, then how about a PDF only supplement?

A radical revision of the rules that makes our existing books useless is going to drive away a lot of us old timers. I don't think the game will attract enough newbies to make up for that in this age of declining popularity of tabletop RPGs in general.

85

With regard to complexity, I think it is important to make a distinction between "handling time" and "complexity". Most of the game mechanics in ArM5 are quite simple. They mostly boil down to (in order of increasing complexity):

  • "add some stuff up and compare to a target number".
  • "add some stuff up, take away something, and compare the difference to a (or a set of) target number(s)".
  • "add some stuff up, take away something, and accumulate the difference until a target number is reached".

The problem areas are that "add some stuff up" can take a long time, as it is often confusing what should be added up. How the "target number" is computed is not clear in all cases either. The problem is the long "handling time", (particularly when you need to hunt stuff down in supplements) rather than rule complexity.

10 points worth of Flaws is a maximum. You can make a companion/magus character just fine with 5, 6,7, etc points of Flaws. Quite often I do.

86

Most of the core game mechanics are quite simple. I'm willing to deal with the handling time issues involved, because I think major changes to the core would mean we're not playing Ars Magica anymore. We could use some definitional tightening, such as the whole "target" issue.

Unfortunately, as the game has evolved beyond the core, lots and lots of mechanics, not all of them simple, have been added. Just for Hermetic Magic I'm thinking of sensory magic, craft magic, and really the whole use of Finesse in general. Then we get into the Divine, Faerie Magic, magic beasties, and the list goes on. I'd rather these addons worked off the core rules instead of having systems of their own.

And there's no reason a troupe can't impose this as a limit. Some of this is just a matter of tailoring your game to the way you and your players want to play.