Casting InMe: Tentative Sense of the Potential AM5 Interest

Hi,

I am considering to fail my Saving Throw versus Running a AM5 PbP.

Please let me know if you are interested. I am not looking for a commitment at this time, because I too am not yet committed, though I probably should be for getting even this far along. What I am looking for is a sense whether people have a strong interest. Because I see Ars Magica more as a toolkit for rules, myths and historical bits rather something I can run comfortably right out of the box, I would need to put together quite a bit of writing, so you have what you need to play aboard this armed and fully operational Death Star. Er, Mythic Europe.

Things you might want to know:

  1. I have a history of publishing deviant rules and setting ideas. This game would use some but not all of these, which I will include as part of the game background. Similarly, I plan to tweak the setting a bit. If you have followed my postings on these boards, you may have an idea of the direction I would take: Realm distinctions are blurred and are subjective (at least at the human level), Finesse gets folded into spell magnitude, Parma improves, rules in RoP:X books are mostly disregarded, starting magi can exceed 10vfs, and some spells are discouraged. I would not include some of my more intrusive ideas: I would retain the usual Abilities, virtues, xp chart for Arts, and so on. Since my interest lies in running a game rather than negotiating rules, if you hate this aspect of things, you probably want a different game. But hopefully you see this is a feature, or at least not a bug.

  2. The game would be driven by PC's personal motivations. Magi rank among the most powerful movers and shakers in the world, even if most people never know it. A PC's first story will be initiated by the player because his character wants to go out and do something in the world and will involve no other PCs. The stories that I initiate would mostly be in reaction to PC actions. I would expect to see characters who immerse themselves in magic as a means toward their ends rather than as their end.

  3. This game would be run in a GM/Player rather than Troupe style. Blame my Hierarchy score.

  4. Each player would have one character, a magus.

  5. I would want to cultivate a sense of the medieval rather than modern, even if that sense is modern folklore. Thus, magi do not need to worry about all the vis going away, or the Exarch Valdez creating an ecological disaster. Educated people believe in a single god in direct proportion to how much they know. Only a few (and probably dangerous) weirdos believe in religious freedom. People care about status and take great pains to act accordingly, even when this seems impractical to us (if a king acts like anything less than a king, he is less of a king, and so too for magi.) None of this reflects my real-world beliefs. I am interested in but not very concerned about historical accuracy.

  6. Characters would be of moderate to high power, with development occurring in 7-year periods (1 month periods RL), stories being sketched in outline but not necessarily run. After a number of these periods, which I would not disclose, the game would begin in earnest.

Again, please let me know if you are interested.

waits 10 minutes before clicking 'Submit'

Anyway,

Ken

Only if I can play a revised Polyoppeties
:smiling_imp:

Hi,

If you can revise him using the rules for this saga, I'd be fine with that, and wouldn't really know the difference, as he'd be native to this saga. I'm sure that a Tytalus with multiple personalities would work. I never reviewed him closely enough to know how you implemented it, and don't want to do that here, since right now I want to find out if 8 or more people are interested.

But if the personalities all had to share the same xp and virtue pool, I'm sure I'd be fine with that kind of flaw, especially if I created a personality that you don't know about. :slight_smile: But if the personalities each had a complete pool of xps and virtues (like one with Gentle Gift and the inability to cast ritual magic, another with Mercurian Magic and Blatant Gift), I'd not consider this a malediction at all.

Anyway,

Ken

sounds interesting (plus Marko is one player that won't just fade away).

Polyoppeties is a Tytalus magus afflicted with Quadrophenia. He has four distinct Personas, and the Major Maelidiction is that each has a separate Major Personality Flaw. Basically, I am taking four Major Flaws for the price of one, but only one of them applies at a time. Same pool of abonities, arts, spells, and memories. Just as for the Persona Virtue. The Delusion minor flaw is that, which ever Persona he is in, that is the one that (at the time) he believes is his true form, and he thinks his other forms are the disguises. He has forgotten who he really is.

This is where I left off with the charter.

I did not develop the fourth persona yet, I was imagining a promiscuous servant girl named Marcia. If you want to have control of a hidden and unknown fourth persona, I would consider that a separate Maldiction. Major or Minor is up for discussion.

Do you prefer useful or playful characters?

Useful: The crown of munchkinism, PeVi attacks, indirect attacks, puissant MT
Playful: A character with spells that clean nappies and make sure the toilet stench doesn't affect the lab.

Is this going to be a game that measures power in Gods dethroned/hour
where penetration and parma define a player,
or more the you-can't be-daft-enough-to-get-killed,
travel-to-Reims-to-build-another-beautiful-organ-to-revolutionize-Gothic-music
kind of saga?

Or do you see yourself exactly in the middle?

Hi,

I'm really not ready to review specific characters. I'm trying to gauge relative interest. But again, a character with multiple personalities is fine, so long as they have personal motivation and so long as it isn't a way to quadruple xps.

Anyway,

Ken

Hi,

What is the crown of munchkinism? (You also might want to wait for my rules before designing the ultimate munchkinism; I can tell you up front, for example, that my changes to MR make indirect attacks unimportant. Puissant MT, of course, is excellent.)

Either can work. A character needs to have personal motivation and the ability to function within his world. To a large extent, he must therefore be 'useful'. But the 'playful' spells can also be just right for certain kinds of character.

In the end, it's up to you. Your character's stories would be driven by your character's wanting things. So if you create a Jerbiton who is planning a dinner party where everything is perfect, well, your first story is going to be that dinner party, and everything had better be spotless. If you create a Flambeau who is planning to incinerate a foul Muslim sorcerer, that's going to be your first story.

And who is to say which story is more significant? Not I.

Most stories will be character driven, and, the pacing of PbP being what it is, PC interaction will often be loose rather than everyone tromping together on the same stories because otherwise there's nothing to do.

You'll be inititiating most of your stories, until the world starts reacting to you.

No. Good luck finding a God. But if you're planning an expedition to slay a faerie who insists he is Thor... best come big.

Motivation defines a character.

You're a magus, with power far beyond that of mortal men. What do you want to do with it?

Anyway,

Ken

That sounds really cool. Because I'm playing in Andorra - which fulfills all my needs for fighting big monsters using big guns. So a pbp that allows a character time to develop his hobby horse is wonderful (I've always wanted to play a character who focuses on making everyday life more comfy - with a portable (flying?) house complete with invisible harp concert and running hot water - because that is what I would do as a magus in the Middle ages.

Probably a Jerbiton (they are metrosexual gentle gifted weaklings, but they are not as ghastly and crazy as some other houses).

Hi,

There's definitely room for that here. He probably won't be in the same stories (running concurrently) as the character who starts off with a Casting Total of 60 for BoAF, but why should he be? There's all kinds of room.

Now I just need to see if there's interest.

Anyway,

Ken

there is

2 so far

Interested. As always a Verditius magus sound like fun... Can't help myself. :smiley: I am thinking elemental magic for now...

Hi,

That's 3.

Anyway,

Ken

How many players before we can start? I am beginning to think Merinita...

Hi,

I would open up a sub-forum and start writing stuff up at 4 in the hope of starting in earnest with 6, which I see as a good base for a stable and ongoing game. But I really want more than that.

I admit that I was expecting and hoping for a much larger response.

Anyway,

Ken

having come out of my mental gloom, I would like to express an interest in what I read as a "personal development camp" for Magi :slight_smile:

Well, we may not be many, but I think we are pretty stable* players. Marko, Max, and me are all heavily involved top 20 forum users and pbp storyguides. Actually with 800 or so posts, I am the most inexperienced of us.

*stable :laughing: (muhahahahaha!)

Hi,

Stable is good. Six or more is good too, and no such thing as too many.

Still, now there are four, so I start writing furiously.

Anyway,

Ken

As I was thinking Merinita I encountered a problem... I had plans to use material from the HoH:MC book, RoP:F & Mysteries books but you mentioned that we should ignore the material in the RoP books. How should I do. I am thinking Merinita with fay blood and lots of mystery powers.