Ok, so I've played every edition of AM except the first, but it's been awhile, and I was thinking which one I'd find best to run.
One issue I noted, but only vaguely, was the creation of covenants. I remember the covenants supplements of older editions, and it seemed that the 5th edition covenant creation just wasnt as compelling... although admittedly its been such a long time my brain is hazy.
If and when I decide to run this game again, I want to run the rules set that has the tightest and best well thought out rules of the editions, but I want the compelling covenant creation and wondered for those of you who remember clearly, which edition matches up the combination of smoothest game experience and compelling covenant creation?
side note, just saw the upcoming definitive edition after posting this. Rather exciting, but still need to know about the Covenants thing before deciding if I want to stick with this newest edition.
As far as I know there has only been a total of two supplements specifically about covenant creation, both named "Covenants".
One for 2nd edition, and the current one for 5th edition.
The 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition core rulebooks include basic, bare-bones, rules for covenants. Neither of which are very interesting or compelling. They are mostly just there for those who want them.
For 3e you could use most of the 2e sourcebooks with minimal adjustments, including the Covenants book.
While I should have a copy of the 2e Covenants book lying around somewhere, it has been years since I read it last. I don't remember it as being very interesting, but my memory is quite fuzzy and vague about the details.
The 5e Covenants book has some parts that are useful and/or interesting and some parts (mainly keeping track of the economy) that many groups choose to ignore.
I like 5th ed because the core rules have it stripped down so tightly that you have the bare minimum to create a covenant in a small chapter, and the supplement has options to play almost anything you can dream of.
Now, earlier editions may have made it easier to assign points to libraries and magic items, and fourth allows you to include the state of repair of the covenant and how easy it is to get supplies, where 5th mostly abstracts those into a simple boon or hook. On balance I prefer the 5th ed way.
2nd - Great base to get to 3rd. You should still play 3+ editions
3rd - Very good setting & simpler system. Good for one shots or short campaigns as the system give way to power quickly
4th - Rules\system improved
5th edition - refined 4th Edition. Allows for long term campaigns. Checks and balances are all there to allow customized yet somewhat balanced play time & fun for everyone
About Convenant building, 5th ed has a lot in there. Some would say too much but you can pick and choose what you want to intergrate.
So to be clear, the 5e one is a bit more vague, and the 2e one is a bit more specific? I remember the 2e one a bit, and I liked how it did it. I think I prefer the specific to the vague a bit more.
I suppose I could see about getting my hands on the 2e version and use it with the 5e with some work?
I think 5ed has a very good hooks and boons system for covenants, but the build point system is crap and somewhere between easily played and hard to adapt. I have never seen 2ed Covenants in action, and the little I have seen of the rest of 2ed felt incomplete for the long-term game that later editions promote.
In contrast, 5ed feels overcomplete. Extensive rulesets encourage players to make far too many complex characters, each with their own agenda. You cannot really compare the two.
While I would not hesitate converting characters from 2ed to 5ed, converting rules sounds painful, and TBH, character conversion would be quite arbitrary; I would just make up something that feels right.
The only thing I really hated about 3ed was the lack of a Covenants supplement, but I suppose one could easily adapt that of 2ed, it is just that we never found it at the time. Even so, if I were to return to 3ed today, I would take some lessons from 5ed, particularly concerning advancement and the management of seasons.
5e is more specific than 2e. In 2e you're spending points to calculate four covenant characteristics (and Aura) by taking various attributes of those characteristics. 5e replaced those with Hooks & Boons.
2e libraries are abstracted to a single score for each Art; 5e libraries track individual books.
Overall, 2e is more abstract and less detailed than 5e. 2e does have four sample covenants, which are interesting from a history-of-Ars-Magica perspective but really don't match 5e canon. 2e also does not have a system for laboratory personalization, which 5e has.
That's a bit unfair. The issue is that, before 4th edition, there was no distinction between a Summa, a Tractatus (or a Liber Quaestionum!). A book in an Art only had a score; Arts had no xp either, just a score. If (and only if) a magus' score was below that of a book, he could increase his score (by 1 full point) from a season of study. He could increase it by 2 or 3 points respectively if his score was no more than half or a third of the book's. So all information about a Hermetic library was the (highest) book score for each Art. It was a simpler system than what you have in 5th edition, but ... after many years, I have to say I almost like it better.
I would say that Covenants 2nd ed. has definitely less information (because Ars Magica 2nd edition was a simpler game, mechanically) but it's neither more nor less abstract than 5th ed. It does focus on different things (for example, the quality of the armament of the fighting grogs). I think it also provides far fewer saga possibilities.
Generally speaking, I would always choose Covenants 5th ed. except if you really like the feel of the 2nd or 3rd edition of Ars Magica (as a whole game) better. In that case, Covenants 2nd edition ... fits, I guess, a bit better.
Hmm. Tricky. 5th edition, as a game, is probably the best. It offers the widest palette with which to paint your sagas, and most of its supplements are of truly superb quality. But 2nd edition, despite showing its age in many ways, did offer a very tight, smooth game. Many folks back in the day called it "the one true edition".
Personally, I am extremely partial to playing using the 3rd edition core book and nothing else at all. Yes, I sort-of-liked Reason too
I did like the covenant creation of the 5th edition Covenants supplement, as it added details same way as the Covenants sourcebook of the previous editions. It adds similar pondering than the 2nd edition sourcebook, which has been outdated long time ago. If you liked the point based system, the 5th edition is not for you, as it uses the idea of 5th edition with minor and major boons and hooks instead of point cost.
I've been using the basic rules for covenant creation from ArM5, although I have the Covenants sourcebook too, and that got me to wondering how much from the sourcebook might make it into the covenants chapter of the Definitive Edition, such as Boons and Hooks and the laboratory rules.
I won't answer for @ezzelino , but since I agree with the conclusion, I will give one reason for the why.
You can see 3ed in two ways. On one hand, it is a more mature version compatible with 2ed. On the other hand, it is a huge step towards the World of Darkness. I find 2ed immature and incomplete, and I prefer stripping 3ed of demons over fleshing out 2ed to support the kind of saga I would want to play.
I have mixed feelings about the Realm of Reason too, none of the feelings strong enough to engage in a fight over it.
In contrast, 4ed takes a huge leap, with a new advancement system and spell guidelines. Again 5ed takes these improvements further, resolving a couple of problems, most notably removing xp gain dependent on abilities and characteristics and introducing the size modifier to spell levels. I have mixed feelings about both improvements. Spell guidelines looked like a huge help towards ease and consistency when they came in 4ed, but over time, I find that I prefer 3ed exemplars and gut feeling for speed. Similarly, the strict separation of art advancement by books, and almost all ability advancement by adventure has some advantages for play. It is good that a balance of downtime and story time is needed for advancement, but it is somewhat hard to defend the particular split narratively. Maybe on this point I prefer 4ed with knowledges that are readable and talents which are not.
My main reason for prefering 3ed over 5ed, however, is that the extensive rules of 5ed are too easily gamed, and encourages too much time spent on mechanistic play. On the other hand, 5ed offers a couple of solutions easily ported to 3ed, with the strict season-based advancement, curbing adventure xp and encouraging a faster pace. The White Wolf demons are too easily removed to make a reason to prefer 5ed.
One should not confuse an edition with that edition's corebook.
The 2nd edition corebook is very spare. It has only two pages on Hermetic society - including Covenants, Tribunals, the Hermetic Code (the Oath is not even there; and Wizard Twilight is not part of the book), plus a single page for Covenant creation rules that are not really enough. It has less than one page on "mundane" Mythic Europe, and three more on supernatural Realms (no Regiones!). A lot of that stuff gets introduced/expanded only in the 2nd edition supplements, such as Covenants and The Order of Hermes.
On the other hand, the 3rd edition corebook has almost 30 pages on Mythic Europe (concise, but very evocative, including a wonderful colour map); it has 8 pages on Tribunals, Houses, and the Hermetic code (again, in my view, exactly what's needed); it has a compact (13+ pages) but fully functional covenant creation system with a lot of character. This setting material, and the truly excellent art also create a very evocative and grim mood for 3rd edition I really, really like. Finally, while the rules are mostly compatible with those of 2nd edition, they are tweaked to be just better (according to my personal taste) in a whole number of minor ways. So, I find playing with the 3rd edition corebook certainly superior to playing with the 2nd edition corebook alone; though the 3rd edition supplements are, in my opinion, not nearly as good - in fact, I'd say that 3rd edition as a whole is definitely worse than the corebook on its own.
Now, why do I find 3rd edition's corebook a serious contender against the full 5th edition line? First of all, you get it all in a single book ... and you don't risk having a perfectly legitimate concept from the corebook invalidated by subsequent material! Second, the difficulty of stuff (from ability rolls to hermetic effects) is left much more to SG eyeballing, with plenty of examples to guide one, and rules to reduce the excessive impact of the d10 roll or of good characteristics where they ought to be overshadowed by experience; while this means you can't really make Hermetic puzzles and it can create more disagreements at the gaming table, it's less "gameable" and ends up more satisfactory story-wise, in my experience. Third, Hermetic Magic is truly universal: within the Limits of Magic, you can attempt anything, without the need to go for lengthy Original Research in order to get a new Range. Fourth, botches at dramatic moments are significantly less likely, which I find both more realistic and more satisfactory story-wise. Fifth, studying Arts is simpler and better, in my view: Arts are de facto capped around 30 or so, with books being the safer way to study early on, and vis being virtually the only option to reach scores beyond 20 (I also like the fact that this makes generalists better, and makes starting magi comparatively stronger - they start with higher Arts too!). Sixth, while truly devastating magic botches can still send a magus into Twilight - and get him into final Twilight much quicker than in 5th edition - Warping is not this constant radiactivity-like force that contaminates and slowly poisons everything one uses magic on; in my experience magi use magic much more freely, which is much more fun. Seventh, the 3rd edition corebook has a bold, grim mood (strengthened by the rules for Passions, and highlighted by art I like better) and a tighter focus that somehow get lost in all of 5th's edition expansiveness.
Note than I am not saying 3rd edition's corebook is better than the 5th edition's whole line. Most likely it is not - 5th edition has too many advantages to list here. I am just saying that playing with the 3rd edition corebook alone can be a lot of fun because of a number of issues that a lot of people overlook and that I myself overlooked for many years. So I am very partial to playing with it.
