No. Neither of these are "Game Rules". They are details of the history and culture of the setting. And as I said from the very outset of this saga, I am drawing heavilly from the history and culture presented in older editions.
Details of 'History & Culture' are things that should still be established and understood before game begins. i.e. ... you need a baseline assumption for things. And we have been using 5th edition for that. You 'have' been drawing heavily on older stuff to include things in the saga, where you have been specifically declaring things altered. Largely in House Flambeau. No one really minds this. In fact I appreciate it because I like the older stuff better where the Flambeau are concerned rather than the PC-version that is the new 5th edition version of a lot of things.
However, and this is a large point, that is all 'OK' because you have been laying it out as a clear groundwork, beforehand, and we can thus all play off of it with clear play assumptions.
This is different Marko. Very different.
Here you are addressing an issue, to your liking, after the fact, and to suit a personal predisposition/judgement of characters/builds rather than a preference for a given set of fluff/setting material over another. Acting like this is the 'same thing' as simply changing some background fluff material is... inaccurate.
By a plain reading of the 5th edition writeup for this stuff Titus is qualified to challenge. Maybe he doesn't succeed, who knows. But he can challenge.
You however seem plainly not to OOCly like the prospect of a character with an 'over-specialized' build being an archmagus, all else be damned, because your personal judgement says so.
This reminds me of the 'Might Destruction' nonsense and how you introduced the 'house rule' for that right as GIJoo was getting into actual play and starting to hit stuff in the game. Well after he had made his character with the clear intent of relying heavily on might destruction.
Rules should come before and form a framework for good decisions, not in reaction to and in an attempt to modify or influence them or their impact.
I don't have a problem with you saying you want training an apprentice to be a requirement for being an Archmage. I really don't.
There 'are' two things that bother me about this situation. The first is that this revelation comes after someone actually wants to challenge rather than before. ( And, while I will grant that is an obscure detail of things that only now is coming up, I know he raised the issue to you privately already, and therefore you had the chance to raise it then rather than wham-bam in public. )
The second is that, based on your own comments already, this is more of a justification sought to impede someone with a build you don't like as a prospective archmage. i.e. that this is largely based on your own personal dislike of 'over-specialization' or the like, rather than on what I would consider an 'even-handed' approach to handling 'each case' as it were.
As an aside saying that someone with two 20s and some other sprinklings has 'poor arts' I think is illustrative here.
Personally this makes your line of thinking pretty clear to me, and thus the apprentice requirement was sought as a way to 'speed-bump' him and to, literally, -force- him to pursue a more generalist route if he wanted to become an Archmage. Let us not pretend that this is you wanting to come in and enforce some longstanding 'I like this from previous editions' way of thinking... you have made it obvious with your own words already that this is not so.
As I said previously. I really don't favor the rules for training apprentices as they stand anyway, but that aside... either way on that, I don't mind the requirement. I just dislike the way it was imposed 'as' things were happening, for a purpose that was clear, while said purpose was being denied.
What this really all seems to boil down to is 'specialist-hate', IMO, which is why my original posts on the subject were more about that.
The status of Archmagus has no mechanical effects upon the game; it is a purely social construct. Thus it is not a question of RAW or house rule, but purely that of setting, flavour, and colour.... all things Mark has always drawn from older editions. (With the exception of Doissetep. Jerk.)
I agree, given Mark's posts, that he is pretty biased against highly specialised characters, but that said, there's no reason his NPCs wouldn't share that bias.
I disagree, there is a free social virtue for Archmages. If I remember correctly you get a Reputation from it, seems like mechanics to me! 
If that was the case, as I've said before, I wouldn't have an issue with it. Antonio could easily say, no you haven't trained an Apprentice etc etc. However Marko has said that NO Archmage will accept a challenge from someone who hasn't trained an Apprentice. So no, it's not just one NPC, it's all of them. A change in the setting as presented by 5th Ed like this ( especially when a player has expressed interest in it ) needs to be noted publicly and before the issue comes up.
I'm on the boundary, here. On the one hand, I think that Marko made a major point when he invoked "The Wizard's Grimoire, Revised". I am a foremost proponent of continuity whenever and wherever possible. I knew about the spell requirement; I'd forgotten about training an Apprentice. In retrospect, it makes sense. With what is presented in "Guardians of the Forest", that goes weight as the prevailing stance within the Order at the current time.
On the other, sometimes we need to hash things out. Each Saga is unique, and there are variables. The Might Destruction rules are questionable, but the rules themselves aren't exactly hard and fast on the subject.
Being an Archmagus is the equivalent of at least a Minor Virtue, if not more than that. It confers very real benefits in some places.
Without turning this into a brutal argument, perhaps this could have been Titus' first attempt, and with all of his focus on his work he did, somehow, overlook that critical step to becoming an Archmagus? He doesn't have Order of Hermes Lore, after all.
In summary, "WAAH I want to have my overmunchikinized specialist cake and eat it too."
I think that's extremely demanding to have a ST or anyone else to have to clear up every single discrepancy within 5 editions as it not only assumes the person is familiar with all of them but has to remember them all and list it out.
Hey just because you have trouble killing Might 10 Creatures 20 years after Gauntlet doesn't mean all of us should. Oh and Octavian, are you just a shmuck all the time? Or is it just you're too lazy to actually come up with a real response to someone's post other than to be a piddly ass whiny/complaining disruptive bugger? From what I've seen of your responses I'm inclined to go with the second option.
See the previous point in Vort's post where he says that I brought this up to Marko is private a while back ( a few months ago ). I agree, there's no way Marko can / should be able to list everything, but when a player gives him plenty of heads up, there's no reason for this to happen. See what happens when we actually read posts instead of giving snarky one sentence responses?
So all in all? Shut up and let the adults talk until you actually have something productive to say. You've been nothing but snarky with me since I've joined and honestly? I'm sick of your crap.
It's not the fact that the requirement exists that is the problem. The problem is, the requirement ( which we all can acknowledge is a 4th Ed thing ) was not presented earlier when the issue was first broached months ago. I'm willing to let Marko plead ignorance etc, however if that's the case, I'd like the chance to ret-con a few things. Titus would have known about the requirement to have trained an apprentice and would have started work on it, a long time ago. Since I OOCly had no idea that the requirement existed ( as I was operating purely off of the 5th Ed requirements ) and for whatever reason it was not stated when I brought it up. However Titus would have ICly known about the requirements...
Does this make sense?
Oh I accepted the changes to Might Destruction. I may not like them ( I think it's lethal to things without a body or that are 'purely' magic ) but Marko's the SG and this is his Saga. Vort simply brought it up as an example of changes that have been made after the fact.
Exactly. It seems to me, that while Titus may not be a scholar by any stretch of the imagination, that if this is your big goal, you would know exactly what you needed to do. But thats just my two cents.
My point, as I previously posted, is that setting & culture material still must be a kind of 'baseline' situation from which people can play. You can't change setting & culture material on the fly as it were and have anything like a stable and consistent game. This kind of stuff is not an 'as you go' thing, in my way of thinking.
I granted that this was an obscure detail not likely to be specifically covered in previous 'here is my setting guys' kinds of stuff. But. This subject was raised in private, I know, months ago. There is where some kind of cultural/setting barrier should have been raised/voiced. Not -in character-, as a surprise, at the last moment when the guy was issuing his challenge.
That is not proper handling of the situation IMO.
The issue for me here really isn't the apprentice requirement, as I have said previously again.
It is the changing of things as people are doing things, with a given previous understanding of rules/play.
The might destruction thing was raised because it is a very pertinent/exact parallel of the same player making decisions with a given understanding and then having things change after they had finished making their character.
Then there was the magic resistance change that happened in much the same manner. GIJoo asked about the functioning of magic resistance as he was making his character. I remember, because I answered one of his questions. He was trying to gauge the effectiveness of his defenses on his own carried items. I basically told him magic resistance/parma doesn't protect his items beyond an inch or so around him by RAW. i.e. it doesn't protect your weapons or armor, but nominally it does protect a layer of clothing or so. I wasn't the only one who chimed in. So here we have a given understanding of magic resistance, publicly raised and voiced, and then -in play- Marko rules that magic resistance in general applies to all things carried, armor and weapons included, conveniently just as Titus was attempting to destroy the armor of an NPC guy.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Before play, one thing, during/after play another thing. On multiple occasions. And these are just the instances I can remember right now, with this one player.
The problem is consistency for me. Not that I care one way or another about these rules or what they ultimately are. I care that they change at the wrong moments, as things are happening, as an effort to modify how things are playing out.
Ok, there seem to have been things going on the in the background of which I was unware. Truthfully, I only have so much time online, and I don't track what is going on with other characters most of the time because, IC, Vares wouldn't know about it, and, OOC, I can't always keep up so I tend to contribute when it becomes salient.
Actually, I'd be inclined to side with Parma protecting everything belonging to/Touching a person. Otherwise we'd see a LOT of Hermetic "open hand" martial artist types instead of warriors with armour and melee weapons. Go up against a Dragon and get your armour melted onto you. That would not be good. At all. Separate debate, I know. Just my take.
If the questions of the requirements of challenging an Archmage were settled already, then the precedent should continue, barring something that requires a major revisiting of the subject. This is a general observation, not specific to the matter at hand. Personally, I say that the evidence supports the need to train an Apprentice, first, but if there was an agreed-upon arrangement that it doesn't always apply, then the exceptions are still in effect. Not necessarily with Antonio, however. I.e. if this is true, then there's at least a rumour that one or more Archmagi out there don't have that requirement, and Titus can see about tracking them down.
How about as a compromise there IS such an Archmagus (or two, or three) out there, who will accept a challenge by Titus even if he hasn't trained an Apprentice, but, first, he'll have to track them down, and, second, should he past the test he'll have a Bad Reputation among the other Archmagi until he does train an Apprentice. Much as a Journey who trains an Apprentice does in the Rhine Tribunal, or others who pass the Gauntlet under suspect circumstances, etc. So Titus can become an Archmagus, but until he fulfills the normal expectations of the position, not everyone will want to recognise it properly or give him the full respect which the position normally carries. More to the point, the other Archmagi tend to scowl a lot and are grudging though they can't deny his new title.
Oh I like Marko's ruling, however I wish it was explicitly stated as much in the House Rules section. MR is a big enough thing that yes, it should be covered.
No, Marko and I made no such arrangements. I simply told him that Titus planned on challenging Antonio sometime in the future. When no objection was raised, I assumed that Titus would be good to go ( at that point, no mention had been made about the Apprentice requirement and I had no reason to suspect it, as I was only using GotF ) and went from there.
See, I'm fine with something like that! Compromise is good!
All in all mate, it's not Marko's rulings that annoy me ( cause quite frankly I agree with most of em ) its that they tend to come after the fact. I'll give him this, sometimes players just do things that you don't expect! But it's happened too many times ( and with 'high profile' things ) for it simply to be just that. So all I'm asking is that rulings be made in advance of player actions as best as you can Marko! 
I appreciate all the work that you put into the story and being the ASG and I know you can't predict everything... Just work on our communication a bit I spose?
Oh woe is me, an ad hominem attack. I could write a very lengthy post but that would lend legitimacy to the argument put forth which I find laughable at best. It boils down to what I summarized, no matter how much sugar coating you place on it. The title is ARCHmage, not "Onetrickponymage". Furthermore, the argument is pointless since the alpha ST has already stated he's not going to back down. Consider that the operative word in Mark's position was that you had to have trainED. Note the past tense. Typically, a magus will take an apprentice at about 15-25 years minimum out of gauntlet. Add 15 years of the apprenticeship and you get at least 30 years out of gauntlet. Which is usually a magus that will have earned a certain amount of power and gravitas. So feel free to call it "lazy" for cutting to the point so things can move on.
As for you feeling victimized, I'm not singling you or anyone else out really. I find the positions taken to be disagreeable and that as this saga has progressed, more and more players that have joined seem to prefer min/maxing or power-gaming which is disappointing.
Whoa there, tiger. There's a world of difference between saying "I have as a serious long-term goal for my character" and "I expect my character to be able to accomplish this very high-end, prestigious goal right after character creation." Sometime in the future does not in any way imply immediate future and thus there is no reason you should expect him to read your mind that you believe your character is capable of doing so right off the bat.
And honestly, training an apprentice is such a no-brainer that he shouldn't have HAD to make it an explicit house rule. It's right there in the Oath: "I will train apprentices who will swear to this Code." Not "I'll eventually train AN apprentice someday when I'm too old and decrepit to go out hunting things with Might," but "I will train apprentices." You expect the Order to hand out the highest accolades possible to someone who hasn't fulfilled, or even shown any inclination towards attempting to fulfill, the Oath that defines said order? Seriously? Because an archmagus should be a paragon of the Order of Hermes, and some scrub who can't train an apprentice without giving him more than a dozen points worth of Hermetic Flaws shouldn't even be considered a Master.
So basically what you're saying is that you want your overgeneralized sub-par Magus who needs the SG to protect him cake and want to eat it too? See? I can respond with snarky one liners too! You're only proving my point mate, so keep up the good work!
I think it's funny that you call Titus an "overmunchikinized specialist". Sure Titus has nine 0's, but Octavian has what 5 Arts under 5? That is if I'm reading his sheet correctly, and I know he studied AN during the downtime. See Titus has an excuse for not giving a damn about having 'broad' arts. See the only real reasons to 'broaden out' as it were are for Spont and for an Apprentice. Apprentice is easy, pay someone else to open their arts etc etc. As for Spont, Titus is a Mercurian, so he'd have to use Ceremonial Casting for any spont he does... no thanks. I spose you could use Certamen as a reason as well... Though Titus would just rather Wizard's War you ( Personally, I hate the 5th Ed Certamen Rules ).
Titus is built as a Combat Flambeau, period. Care to explain how he's a one trick pony?
Power-gaming? So building a character who fits a specific theme and is very good at what he does is power-gaming? It's not that it makes logical sense for a Combat Mage not to have points in things like He or anything, nope!
Again, see the previous points raised. There was no mention of the requirements being changed from the ones presented in 5th Ed. So why would I assume that they different?
Is it now? Because in House Flambeau most Magi ( From what I've seen, Marko feel free to correct me ) run around doing the whole stompy blasty bit for a good long time, until they get older and finally decide to take an apprentice. And I'll have you know it would have only been nine points worth! Gosh!
I'm sorry Arya, but ANYTIME you deviate from what is listed in the 5th Ed books, even if you're simply going back to an older edition, you need to say so. Because unless you do, players operate under false assumptions and then get rather angry when you spring 'oh but we're doing things this way!' on them.
You can't be serious?
You are arguing that wherein the Code says:
"I will trian apprentices who will swear to this Code"
That this is a compulsion to engage in the activity of training apprentices?
Perhaps it would be useful to, as in most things, look at the full statement and judge it in context?
"I will train apprentices who will swear to this Code, and should any of them turn against the Order and my sodales, I shall be the first to strike them down and bring them to justice. No apprentice of mine shall be called a magus until he first swears to uphold this Code."
Now, call me crazy, but that full statement doesn't look anything like a 'Thou Shalt Go Forth And Train the Gifted' commandment.
What it looks like to me is a vow that, should you choose to train an apprentice, you will train them to uphold the Code and be a member of the Order as well. That you can't go and train someone on the sly to be a renegade and the like. That you can't go and train someone in 'super sekret' Order of Hermes stuff, like say the Parma Magica and Hermetic Theory blah blah, and not make them swear the Oath and join.
It's basically a non-disclosure agreement.
Not a 'Convert The Masses' commandment.
Using that as a justification to argue 'You aren't fulfilling your oath by not being terribly interested in training apprentices' is, frankly IMO, incredibly churlish and weak.
Octavian, it doesn't really bother ( or surprise ) me that you disagree with me. I'm comfortable and confident enough in myself and my opinions on things that I don't really care. But you do a fair ammount more than that. You, frankly, are insulting and rude to those you disagree with.
I may occasionaly slip, I don't know, but I do my best to try and assume we are all here for fun and positive purposes and to treat everyone like I would, generally, if they were sitting at my kitchen table in my very own house having been invited there to game.
Hospitality and Gentlemanly behavior and all of that. Respect for the views of another.
You Sir I think I would ask to leave, for your behavior.
I can accept, easily, someone disagreeing with me, as I said.
Insulting belligerence... not at all.
In your opening comments in this discussion you didn't just state your disagreement with the views I posited. You insulted them, and myself.
Then you proceed to largely ignore points that were already raised in your, brief, commentary.
I really was rather unsure how I should respond to you initially. Hell. I was unsure 'if' I should respond, or whether it was wiser to just ignore you and let it all go.
Obviously I've decided against that now. But I'm still left rather confused by your behavior.
You made a character that, while themed and built with obvious skill and attention, was well below the declared intended/desired power level for this game. After that you have constantly complained about feeling 'weaker' than everyone else, while also just as constantly dropping snide comments about the min/maxed 'munchkin' characters other people were playing.
This has left me somewhat confused and annoyed with you for quite some time, but in this instance I really find it more compelling. Perhaps it is the direct insulting of myself for a change, I don't know.
Anyway.
You made that decision.
You built a twenty year character that has trouble getting ten to twenty points penetration to hit a relatively low might creature with your magic.
I built what the SG asked for. I built someone who can go out there and adventure in a high power envirionment. That was what was in the game pitch. That is the setting as advertised. How many times do we have to hear our SG complain that he is having to tone down his encounters as planned and thought out as 'reasonable' because the PCs are so weak?
To be blunt, yet again, I am tired of hearing you complain about the consequences of the original design choices that -you- made.
You made an awesome character.
But you didn't make one to fit in with the intent of this Saga.
Stop whining about it.
Either do something about it with your advancement, and work yourself out of being piddly, or make a new character, or quit. I'm just sick of the snide comments, thinly veiled derision, and general vitriol from it all.
yawns So who was calling out for immaturity when the statement above is essentially: I am rubber, you are glue...?
While I do dislike to indulge in any strawman fallacy, here goes: I haven't finished the character's advancement from the most recent timeskip. The character started the game 13 years out of apprenticeship and not the full 20. My experience with Ars Magica was 4th edition previous to this campaign, hence why the character is not "optimized".
Back to the argument. The point is, your specialized combat mage doesn't fulfill the requirements of his goal, wants it immediately without having to put the time and effort, and now your trying to make the case for you to get your way and unsurprisingly getting support from a player of another character concentrated in 3 arts. See what Arya already posted.
Fair enough, perhaps onetrickponymage was a bit extreme but it was to signify the point. Yes an Archmage challenge is focused on one aspect of hermetic arts, but there's still an element that you have at least passing competence with all facets of magic and not just 1. One could easily reach a fair amount of acclaim as a hoplite pursuing that only 1 facet.
Eh, I suppose I can see that interpretation too, but I've always interpreted it as I alluded before. As Bonisagus' oath, it has always seemed to me that it meant a few things, in this order of importance:
- I will train apprentices
- They will also be members of this Order
- I take responsibility for ensuring that my wizardly lineage remains within the Order
It is Bonisagus' oath; I always felt that Bonisagus was about the training of the apprentices, and the other bits about establishing dynastic lines for the continued good of the Order was Trianoma's influence.
IMO if he'd meant "Should I train apprentices, then...&" it would have said that. It's only one more word, so it's not like they opted for the existing wording for brevity's sake.
Right, to prevent this from turning into some flame war or pissing contest ( well... even more than it already is ), let me just spell the point Vort and I have been trying to make ( since it seems to have either been ignored or just not understood ).
According to Marko, Titus is not qualified to challenge Antonio for the title of Archmage. This in and of itself is fine, Marko is the ASG and he can do whatever he wants ( within reason ) to the rules / setting. However, it was poor form to not to inform me of the changes to the requirements as they stand in 5th Ed when I brought the issue up OOCly months ago. Instead Titus makes a challenge, assuming that he has met the requirements, only to find out that he doesn't. Having known he needed to train an apprentice, Titus would have started work on it a long time ago ( IE during Char Gen or during this past Down Time ). Instead he looked like an idiot and must now scramble to meet a requirement that he should have ICly known about, but as the player OOCly I had no inkling.
The point? Changes to the setting / rules need to be explicitly stated at the start, not after the fact. As Vort and I have discussed, this is not an isolated incident, similar things have happened with Magic Resistance extending to items and Might Destruction. Unless specifically noted, why would a player think something operates in a manner different than presented by 5th Ed?
Let me say again ( and hopefully for the last time! ) Vort and I don't have a problem with Marko's ruling. We do however care when rulings happen after the fact, when they could be handled OOCly long before the event in question even takes place. Long story short? Communication, it needs to be better.