I think When is a bigger issue.:S
Too true.
I would definitely not count combat as a core experience.
Maybe as a form of certamen, but I prefer that to be stylized and simpler than crunchy.
If you have a decent GM and a mage, any theoretical application of magic ought to solve most physical narrative problems without a stupid fight. That doesn't mean there isn't danger, which is why having named hit points (grogs) is pretty awesome and makes the setting feel more rough.
For me, the most interesting parts were politicking and managing the resources for the covenent.
Also, exploring places mentioned in medieval legend (I liked the bit with Blemmyas in the Sands supplement, although my friend owns that one, I don't. We had fun building relationships and trading partners for rare goods and VIS with them and undercutting the Dedun cultists, who the GM set up as opposition.)
Tribunal politics is fun, but I wish there was a way to swap out the damn houses with magical figures the average gamer has heard of or cares about. I have quite a few political players in my group and they're always asking for a chance to do something like the debates and vote-garnering that the game suggests.
Most adventures seem to be written around investigation and revelation, which my wife and I certainly enjoy.
So, the core experiences that draw me to the game:
- workshopping new spells to solve weird problems
- getting to know your hit points (grogs), watching the surviving ones develop lives of their own
- world-building via exploration that uses a cool grab-bag of medieval myth you don't normally see in a fantasy rpg (encountering blemmyas, grylluses and those sun griffon things from Divine Realms of Power and interacting with them not as monsters but as odd people with drives, answers and soulful peculiarities)
- intellectual infighting and dirty (not deadly) politics, dealing with political folly brought on by differing spiritual views
- resource management for your growing, recovering or declining covenant
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I have been thinking on this as I go through my Ars Magica creating my own quest story adventure campaign craze. The things I noticed I am doing is thus:
- Magic. The magic system for the game is what I adore. The Arts, the Forms and Techniques, the guidelines. The whole Hermetic Order. The fact that the main character can use his magic freely. That the main character can reasably trust that his magic is generally better than any hedge magic he will come upon - they might be good, better, a singular thing, but generally his magic is better all around.
- Exploration. I love that they can't just teleport to places they haven't been, they have to walk or run or fly, but still go normal, but that they can teleport to base camp or away when necessary. I love their freedom to travel, to explore, to see the world and not be shackled to one place.
- Laboratory. Research, development, study, expansion of magic.
- Covenant. Having and organizing and expanding and defending and advancing one's home base of operations in ways mechanically beneficial is great to me.
I also love who the main characters are - they are the Merlin figure, rather than the Arthur figure. BUT that the Arthur figure could be there as a companion. And that the others could be there as the supporting grogs.
I love how all magic, even magic not Hermetic, gives its representation using the main rules so that effects can be judged against our main being.
What I have not focused on is Faerie. Though I do have to admit to having looked more into Divine and Infernal then I expected to. I have also begun looking deeper into what Magic actually is, and that is fun too.
I have also not paid one wit to combat mechanics. That I write out, even roll out, pages and pages of material on spellcasting and spellcrafting and laboratory work, but that combat is at its most impressive "Heru and his people face a threat, the battle is fierce but in the end Heru defeats them" while "Heru and his companions face down the threat, defeating them" is how it mostly ends.
Really though, it comes down to the fact that the character I play is a mighty mage who can wield mighty magics that can be even fiercer if he spends time to study them, to learn their 'scientific' natures.
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