Faith & Flame: The Provençal Tribunal

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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I've got my copy of F&F. Takes a while till the books are shipped to Europe. I had been looking forward to it because Markoko, who runs the wonderful Andorra game here on the forum is one of the authors, and because it reminded me of my first copy of Ars Magica, which was set in the same region.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but I found the book quite a disappointment.

  • As Ars Magica 5 is growing older, there increasingly is the problem that some material has already been published in other books. You can play GotF without looking up something all the time. But you can't really use F&F without having: L&L, HoH: S (Flambeau), TMRE (Cults), Hedge Magic, the book on the Infernal/Divine, Lords of Men etc. etc.
    The charm of having a tribunal book is having the information you need in one place, not spread out over a dozen.

  • I thought it was a good idea to leave the tribunal mechanics more or less vanilla. What I am missing is elements of flavor here, small things that color the tribunal without changing the rules much, things like fancy names for official functions ("In this tribunal, the Praeco is called X because...).

  • I have recently reread Triamore (4th ed) and it struck me that the tone of the book was easier to read. I liked both the little elements of fiction and the text that directly addressed potential gaming questions rather than sounding like a guidebook for tourists.

  • When hooks first came out, I really liked them. But I do not see them as a replacement for a chapter offering 1 - 3 ideas for a game that go further. Not without reason is "Curse of the Rhine Gorge" so popular. Google makes it easy to find basic information on a location. What makes "Curse of the Rhine Gorge"/GotF special is that it goes beyond that and take some workload of a storyguide's shoulders - a workload that is increasing as more and more supplements come out.

Maybe it is time for Ars Magica 6.

  • It would lessen the burden of canon.
  • We could finally have a d6 version (reducing the amount of randomness: As it is, the fall of the dice is more important than the skill of a character)
  • Maybe, you could even integrate some elements of the new generation of roleplaying games (like FATE), namely the use of words instead of numbers. This would lessen the need for complicated rules that turn players into rules-lawyers and gaming into min-maxing. Ars Magica used to be one of the most innovative games on the market. I have the feeling that this is slowly slipping away.

Just reread my post. I can't say I'm staying focused on the topic, but all of this needed to be said.

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Doisettep is still in there, just with a different name. Aedas Mercurri. The description mentions two sections, a "Dorsum" and a "Septum" :slight_smile:

I thank you for your compliments. That is the section I was most involved in. And though called "Lost", you didn't really loose it. It is still there; same Abaddon, same Aerie Clan, same Iron Door. My original vision was to have it barely alive, but the other guys convinced me to make it dormant yet ready for revival.

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I hope to offer apologies and explanations for failing your expectations, and hopefully get you to look at the book in a new light. I also agree with some of what you have to say.

I agree, and that is in part a problem often encountered. I would have been glad to hand-wave or just hint, but there is an expectation to explain things by the book. I did some of that in Val-Negra, guilty, but I tried to keep it minimal and easy to gloss over or rule by fiat.

There you contradict yourself. To be the standard vanilla tribunal, then this by definition would have to be the place where the praeco is called "Praeco", alternative titles are for those strange exotic tribunals. The titles and customs are exactly those as described in the core rules. It is those other tribunals that do it different.

Lack of space. Perhaps I agree about gaming questions and answers. But the bits of fiction, though they would be cool, is not a part of ArM5. It now utilizes Story Seeds and little factoid blurbs. Those are maybe more useful that bits of fiction?

I would like to do a whole book based on just one covenant, the way Mistridge was done in past editions. I generated enough Val-Negra material to do just that. It would be a cool project.

I agree.

Some ideas I agree with, some not so much. I would want to refine and maybe simplify cannon, and of course restore the original Flambeau :mrgreen:
Not keen on the d6 idea. I am kinda used to the simple/stress/quality d10 system and am familiar with it's nuances. Maybe more characteristic points or cheaper abilities (pyramid x3 xp for most abilities, pyramid x5 only for difficult categories like Academic and Arcane).

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Thanks for the reply Marko.
One of the plusses of Ars Magica. You can talk to your heroes and Gods, which is better customer service than the Catholic church!

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I get to talk to GOD all the time :mrgreen:

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I think d10 is the right scale. Three degrees of success (one degree being 3 points), for a Poor, Average, and Good result. That's fine.

Using words instead of numbers, as per FUDGE/FATE, is problematic in that ArM uses three scales: the scale of skills (Abilities and/or Arts) and Characteristics, the scale of rolls (Characteristic + Ability), and the scale of magic (Characteristic + Te + Fo). Losing the Characteristic, i.e. reducing Ability rolls to die + Ability, is possible; I believe Timothy Ferguson advocated for this, turning Characteristics into Virtues (or Flaws) instead. But combining two Arts is at the core of Ars Magica. As is the ability to gain various bonuses to that roll (Aura, raw vis, talisman attunement...). This means that the numbers skyrocket and thus words become rather impossible to use - and this at the very heart of the game.

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I'm sorry to hear that, although I'm unsure how much of your disappointment is due to the specific product and how much is due to the inevitable increase in complexity of the current edition. I'll just comment on the specific Faith and Flame comments as the ArM6 discussion is probably best left for another thread - as an author, I'm happy to promote and engage in discussion and respond to feedback (positive or negative) on the topic of the book on this thread. That's why we're here after all.

This is true to some extent but it is a bit dependent on your style of play.

GotF was the first ArM5 supplement so there was no wider canon to link into - it was written into a vacuum.

We strove to avoid this as much as possible (in fact it's a guiding philosophy for writing supplements) and included enough mechanics for those elements that overlapped with other supplements (but balanced against including too much). Flambeau is pretty integral to the western and Pyrenean aspects of the Tribunal yes but the detail of explanation provided is quite extensive. As to the Cults, they exist in the background but you can play an entire Saga in Provencal without involving them greatly. The whole Serpent plot is optional intentionally etc etc.

Sure, it is likely the result is imperfect.

Personally I am fortunate enough that I have most of the supplements and enjoy the interplay and synergies between them but realise that this is not the case for the majority of fans and attempt to write accordingly. David (the Line Editor) and the playtesters were pretty strict and consistent on this. If I'd had the option I would have drawn upon the whole canon and linked into the wider body of work but I didn't as this was impractical.

I believe you can actually use most of Faith and Flame without anything other than the corebook - the Arelat chapter I wrote is intentionally intended to be a potential "home base" for corebook characters to use, with a lot of hints and Story Seeds to encourage play, a low Mystery approach etc etc. This is why the hedge magicians are mentioned but not expanded upon in the supplement - instead I provide further details and developed concepts on my blog for concepts that require additional books eg Hedge Magic. That way you should be able to enjoy the official supplement with only the corebook but if you have additional material we've provided links to using this material and will back this up with Sub Rosa material (in an upcoming theme issue I believe) or via my blog (for mainly Arelat specific material).

Thanks. This was a very deliberate choice when we pitched this back about 4-5 years ago as back the (and maybe even now actually), the other ArM5 Tribunal books actually show quite unusual variations of Hermetic society (even the Rhine with voting of dead magi by proxy etc). Stonehenge may be an exception but it's detailed in ArM4 format so non-canonical.

I have to agree with Marko though in response - as he stated, if it's the "vanilla" Tribunal (a theme we used and referred back to during writing) then the Praeco is actually called the Praeco rather than everything having "Kewl Namez". Personally I like some of these thematic variations (Thebes and Transylvania in particular) but not so much others.

Happy to discuss the supplement further - as authors we are particularly interested in what works for people and what doesn't and why. We may have set the bar at "vanilla" but that's actually quite difficult to achieve as a balance and we would all appreciate genuine (and preferably constructive) feedback on what was good, what could be better and what just didn't work but would request that it be accompanied by reasoning and be specific to the book.

You are entitled to your opinion - I personally find negative feedback (unless just personal and petty) very helpful.

Lachie

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The trick is getting God to reply.

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I differ from Jarkman in that my motives are purely selfish. I was and am into it for myself. I wanted to create a book that I liked and that I could use, something that forwarded my philosophy of what the baseline should be and paying homage to previous editions. Many things had to be cut and many compromises were made.
By no means perfect, for my use it is the best and most useful tribunal book so far.
I think the book would have been much better if it could have been double sized :mrgreen:
What did you think of Val-Negra? I was thinking of maybe basing a saga on that material.

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Haha Marko.

I too agree a double-sized book would be great, or perhaps just a whole book on Val-Negra (if only, you still have some of the material we originally intended for the expedition style return pitch for "Tales of Power" and plus there's all the ideas generated from the Andorra Saga). It'd be great to play a Basque magi methinks.

Posting extra material on my blog really is an attempt to provide a director's cut of how I would use the material if I ever ran a Saga in Provencal.
(which would probably be non-Hermetic given half a chance and therefore even less orthodox than the material already is)

Ciao

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Hi Pralix,

It sounds like what you missed in your read-through was unique touches that make the Tribunal special. One of our goals as authors was to do that by playing with nostalgia, with lots of call-outs to older editions. The book is partly a Fifth Edition homage to places like Doissetep (or "Dorsum Templum" rendered into the local Pyrenees dialect), Bellaquin, Lariander, and Val-Negra. We explored the clash of old-school Flambeaux with newer-edition Flambeaux, old-school Merceres and newer-edition Merceres, and all Flambeaux vs. everyone else, including vikings, House Diedne, and Normandy. Things like Mistridge, and faerie queens, and rampaging demons, and crusading knights, heretics and holy men mixed with hedge wizards and witches. I fear its scope is almost too broad when I try to think of where I would recommend starting a saga. There is interesting Ars Magica setting history in there like Hoplites and the first Tribunals, and fun new rules like those for the Sorginak or associated with the mystery cults or holy traditions. For me, the book highlights everything that first grabbed me about Ars Magica early on, when I played through the Four Seasons tetrology from within a little spring covenant founded in the Val du Bosque. I hope on subsequent reads more of the stuff we thought was really cool comes across for you, or at least that you find things you can use in your other games!

Regards,
Erik

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I consider this a feature, not a bug.
I can see how it might create a higher barrier of entry, but I'm so horribly sick of games where the appearant guideline is "You must write this product so that it can be used with only the core book!".
It leads to the same problem being solved multople times and to me feeling I waste my money on buying the same set of rules multiple times - OR - to a situation where one supplement has some amazingly cool stuff, and you know that no other book in the line will ever ue it again.
I much prefer referenced systems.

Different purpose.

As far as I can tell, there are really 2 possibilities here:

  1. Your group/players don't care. Workload does not increase.
  2. Your group/players do care, and want to use the nnifty features from various books. That's GREAT! Pull them into the design process, farm out parts of it, move towards Troupe style play. Some coordination is required, but in my experience, the workload decreases.

This has been suggested from time to time :slight_smile:

Only if there is an explicit 'canon re-boot'.

I'm actually quite happy with the amount of randomness in Ars.
I've played systems where it is much more significant and where it was much less significant.
The former tend to make character sheets (and this mechanical development) largely irrelevant, while the later tends to make dicerolls irrelavent. CP2020 did this.

Interestingly, I see much more rules-lawyering in simpler systems, because they are easier to take advantage of, or because one person read a sentence to mean one thing and the next person read them to mean another thing.
It may just be the specific groups (indeed it probably is), but I've seen much more rules lawyering in FFG's Only War (a very simple d% based system) than in Ars Magica.
This despite playtesting Ars Magica, as well as having 2-3 times as many session per month.

Admittedly, I have yet to try FATE. A lot of people recommend it, but when they try to explain it, I keep hearing problems rather than features. :-/

Ofcourse. Other games have learned from Ars Magica.
That's part of being innovative.

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I entirely agree with this sentiment, reinventing the wheel each time is annoying, and seeing how different things interact is a joy.

Bob

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I'm trying to navigate my copy but some parts are harder to find. Take Tres. He is supposed to be in Chapter 5.

Not so much.

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I was told just two days ago in this thread that it was decided to drop that and that it will be put ito Sub Rosa so you will get that info if you buy the fanzine. The comment on the description of Tres' band that you should find it in chapter 5, should had been removed but was missed, hence the misleading comment to said chapter.

So buy the Sub Rosa and you will most probably find it there.

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It seems there's more than a little call for Tres. I'm headed to Gencon, but I'll see if we can't put together something for him, perhaps a teaser for SR#16 which covers him. (I say #16 because #15 is pretty much in the can and just compiling art and the Mappa Mundi article.) I now return you to your discussion of Faith & Flame.

While I am biased, (and it's like picking a favorite child) I liked the section detailing the how the other covenants viewed each covenant, and the list of potential paters/maters within the Tribunal. I felt those would really help anchor new characters in the setting and give people a good idea of the underlying relationships.

-Ben.

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Those were very cool. Really helped me get a feel for how the Tribunal works in practice

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I worked on the history -- the straight history is mine, the Hermetic History Mr. Dahl, though I integrated the two for most of the project so probably my fault if any issues arose -- and the Hermetic Culture stuff. At a very late stage we restructured the first part of the book heavily, just prior to third playtest I think, and I think the new layout is very useful, but it is possible there are the odd orphaned reference to an earlier chapter structure. The fact we ended up with two Chapter 7's suggests that may be so :wink:

I also wrote the County of Toulouse chapter, and the Cathars and Crusades stuff as well as the Gorgiastic Criamon tradition who embrace a form of Catharism. I think I know my Cathars, but if I got anything wrong in my presentation I apologize -- scholars disagree very strongly on certain aspects, and I followed a modern British academic take in the main, rather than the WMT view of the Cathars or that favoured by some French, German or Greek scholars (all of whom contest certain interpretations). My version should work with any of the interpretations i hope, but retains what I think are the interesting parts - like the diversity of Cathar traditions, and the fact you should be able to have Cathars of at least three realms, and possibly a fourth, in your saga.

I wrote the House of Exiles and Tolosa Paratge covenants, and worked on Val Negra, but in a purely destructive sense - Marko's original draft was vastly longer, and it had to be pruned back to almost nothing of the original. I saved what I hoped were the key elements, and hope Marko will publish a fuller version in Sub Rosa. My playtesters loved the original version.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions on my bits I'll happily have a go at answering. We all did material that ended up in each others chapters though. The Maters & Matrones are Erik, as are the Mercurian rites -- Ben wrote the Covenant relations, or was it Lachie? Aggghh! Too long ago :slight_smile: All great stuff :slight_smile:

cj x

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14 detachable floors, 25mm scale. And it never fell :wink:

cj x

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Ben would like them -- they were Bens!!! :wink:

And excellent too!

cj x