A new game that’s being produced is using essentially and explicitly the Ars Magica magic system. I just thought it might interest the community. The system uses the five techniques, but slightly different forms, and appears to have a more free-form way of determining spell level (kinda like 3rd edition). It also has a Paradox-like mechanic, where the universe ‘punishes’ you for flashy spells. On top of a final-twilgiht (& warping) system.
All under different names, of course.
Overall the game appears to be very crunchy and simulationist and not quite to my taste. But it does standard-fantasy with Ars Magica’s magic system, basically.
It looks very similar. As Pathfinder edition 1 was to D&D 3.5 levels of similarity.
He actually mentions Ars Majica, and talks of how he has borrowed mechanics. The ones I saw techniques and forms; spell magnitude calculation around target, range,duration, etc; and twilight. I imagine Atlas are seeing it as inspiration and homage, not anything else.
I backed the kickstarter - big fan of Mythras, and I have used this creator’s house rules for converting Ars Magica’s magic system to d100 before. Hoping it’s a good source of more d100 rules options if nothing else - idk why, but d100 games have always seemed easier to convert between one another than any other shared baseline.
Can you link any ongoing kickstarters? Will be interesting to see if this releases before the Ars backerkit is delivered (not a knock on Atlas, the Tariff situation may make international printing impossible right now).
"Will be interesting to see if this releases before the Ars backerkit is delivered" ArMDE as a text has been delivered to early backers already 18.10.2024.
Funded by nearly 525,000 $ by Oct 30 2024, with beautiful art, a premium core rulebook costs 119$ with over 300 pages.
In comparison, the Ars Magica backerkit was funded by over 840,000 $ by November 14 2024, includes new art but definitely not at the same quantity, and the premium rulebook costs 150$ with over 600 pages.
So they were fully-funded at similar times, but of course this doesn’t mean much.
Well, I don’t know the fine details, but it definitely draws a LOT from Ars Magica - and explicitly so. The same idea of verb + noun, the same verbs, nearly the same nouns, limits of magic, a warping + final twilight system….
The details on how to set the spell level appears a bit different, as do the limits, and some of the Forms are different. And the idea of Paradox is foreign to Ars Magica. But the system is very, very similiar, and much of it is explicitly copied from Ars Magica.
“Paradox” seems to have roots in the old World of Darkness / White Wolf game ‘Mage: The Ascension’. It is an interesting mechanic for keeping magic from being too flashy.
The Paradox thing sounds like WoD Mage. Which always bugged me. It made sense with vampires… they are always, in all the fiction, hiding out from mortals, but the need to have an equivalent mechanic for all of their games didn’t always sit right with me. I never liked the fact that you were punished (by the universe!) for being a mage when a mage is what you were supposed to be. It’s one thing to worry about scaring peasants, it’s another to have to worry about cosmic backlash.
I think it’s a metter of genre. In The World of Darkness or modern urban fantasy in general, you want the supernatural to be present yet the mortal world to funciton as-is. So you have to have a mechanism that will limit ostensious magic. Which is what Paradox does.
I don’t very much like this approach, and I certainly don’t see why you need to insert into a fantasy setting like Broken Empires. I much prefer Ars Magica’s social-implicaitons over this weird cosmic-backlash thing.
Even in a fantasy world I like world based limitations or backlash to magic so that the non-magical world can mostly function as a non-magical world. Ignoring specific mechanics for the moment, the idea of paradox or the corruption from Swords in the Serpentine is critical for my suspension of disbelief in a fantasy world that isn’t overwhelmingly dominated by mages.
Fair enough. I can get behind “magic is dangerous” mechanics like wild magic (including botches and Wizard’s Twilight) or corruption or so on. But for me, limiting ostentious magic feels like punishing players for using their abiltiies - even if it’s the rules that’s punishing them. I prefer Ars Magica’s social implications in that regard.
