Like I said - presenting one way of playing has a very high probability of making many people think it is the one and only way to play. Just saying there are more ways won't help - you have to present at least a few of those other ways to play as well.
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I trust the reader to mostly abide by what's written, specially if you emphatically say 'These are not the only options'. But I agree that people will tend to play that way. And honestly, so what? You will get people playing the game, which is better than what we have now. And if you want to do something different, that is precisely why I'm suggesting tools to be prepared to run anything that comes up your way. Those are perfectly adaptable pieces of mechanics that can make you feel like you can run this game, which I don't think happens now to new people.
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If it is any help, I found this to be quite helpful: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lBoVjqZX0dR1XnVTat6iAxxPJZmJbWbeJwDzXK0655A/
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I've had a look and I agree. I don't expect that project to produce a usable character manager any time soon.
The Foundry VTT module for Ars Magica looks a lot better, is already quite usable, and is making steady progress. Unfortunately, it is locked into foundry, which creates another barrier to entry.
I think it is pretty clear that examples are needed to show potential new players what using these rules in practice might look like. Yes, there is more than one way to play and one saga might differ dramatically, but that doesn't mean examples can't be helpful. If anything, it suggests that there should be many examples. But showcasing one particular playstyle and pointing out that there are other options seems a lot better than nothing.
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Because they were specifically requested by people playing your role when ArM5 was being written. They are there to let people know that they do not have to get a PhD in medieval studies to play the game, and to give an idea of the sort of research that might be possible and helpful. They aren't answering the question you are asking right now, but they are answering a question that I was asked.
OK, I have those as well. Stars popped up first, so let's look at that. "Sector Creation" and "Societies" would only work for a No Research Saga. "Factions" is new rules. Something like that could be created for NPC covenants, at least, and possibly nobles and monasteries, but it would be a significant amount of work and would require extensive playtesting to make sure that it didn't end up with the NPCs "cheating". (Yes, NPCs can cheat. That's part of the Ars Magica default play contract.) "Adventure Creation" is either abstract advice, or something that would need to be written for a particular Tribunal, rather than going in the core book. And even then, the assumptions about adventure structure do not apply to ArM, so it would have to be very different. We have a Bestiary, and it's bigger in ArM5D. It's also much, much less central to the play assumptions.
This is almost no help in determining what should go in such chapters for Ars Magica.
I think the idea that a game should have a clear "language" in this sense is an interesting line of game development, and has produced a lot of excellent games. There is a sense in which it can answered for any game, of course: ArM is a medieval wizard simulator. However, the answer for ArM doesn't provide a clear answer to your implicit question: What do I do in the game? Well, what does your medieval wizard want to do? We have rules for that…
There are people who really like this style of game. I'm one of them and it sounds like @nemophilius is another. But it has never been popular, because it necessarily starts with you being overwhelmed by options, and the better the game is at doing its job, the more options there are to overwhelm you.
Recent game design has basically said "This is too difficult to get started at. Let's abandon it and take a totally different approach", and this has produced some really good games that do their thing really well. (Quite a lot of them are PbtA, which has proved to be a brilliant framework, and probably the most important mechanical innovation in RPGs of the last twenty years.)
As @John_Nephew said earlier, we have looked at producing material that will introduce people to ArM, but he has always judged that it would not be financially viable. The open license might mean that we can finally do something about that.
As I said earlier, these sections are not absent because we think they are unimportant. They are absent because it is not clear how to do them. The ways that they are done in other games are not appropriate for Ars Magica.
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It would be interesting to have a "starter saga" that consisted of a pregen covenant and PCs, an intro scenario, a walk-through of advancing the characters in a decade without adventure, and then another adventure that returns in some way to the plot of the first one, perhaps a foe thought vanquished turned out to have spent a decade preparing for revenge. Maybe set out to be run as three game sessions. So more of a Trinity Shot rather than a One Shot intro to the game.
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Yes, I think including downtime with some handholding to help players work through the process would be very helpful. Two story sessions are the minimum for that, I think.
I've been thinking it would be nice to set things up as a sequence of stories that showcase different aspects of the game, interspersed with downtime. This would end up longer, though, which makes it less of a quick intro and more of an opening chapter to a saga.
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I agree with most of what you are saying, but as As one of the people who brought up SWN I wanted to comment on this:
I agree that ArM is not in need of the same world-building tools as the *WN games. Ars Magica has a well-established and lore-rich setting. A lack of setting details is not the problem here. I think of this not as something that could just be copied for ArM but as an example of a solution to a related problem that we could learn from.
Creating and running a hex crawl campaign can be just as daunting as setting up an ArM saga. There is a whole world to create and so many hexes to populate. The answer Kevin Crawford is offering in his games is to say that A) you don't have to do it all at once, and B) here are lots of tools (mostly in the form of random tables) you can use to generate content or use as inspiration.
Random tables for large-scale content creation don't mesh as well with a game like Ars Magica, which emphasises simulation and narrative. However, they are also great for inspiration and could be helpful in several ways. For example, I could see some use in creating NPC's and NPC covenants.
One of the challenges a SG shares with the GM of a hex crawl is to make the the world around the characters feel alive. Things should be happening in the background whether or not the PCs are involved. That is where the faction system comes in. Yes, that does involve more rules, although I think of these more as a toolset that SGs could use to the extent they find them useful.
I can see how fitting this into the core book would be difficult and it may be better suited to an SG toolkit.
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Yes, I think there might be ways to adapt those tools to setting books, and develop background rules for factions and covenants. And maybe, after a few years of iteration and use, they could be refined to something that would fit in the core rules. It's definitely something to look into.
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Of course you did. You fell in love with a faerie tale.
The narrative long game, troupe play, and fairly improvised magic are wonders of our dreams as roleplayers. The actual play is just a shadow.
I fear some of the drive for easier and more concrete introductions for beginners stem from an illusion that seasoned players have got it right.
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I kind of like the idea mentioned previously, of making such a starter saga with apprentices. I do not think it should be the only starter set, because not all beginners will be comfortable playing children, but at the end of the day, the question is going to be what the fans may want to do in their spare time.
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That was not my point. My point is that there are games that explain how to play them. I believe what I've said is clear, and I provided lists of stuff that could go into such a section, albeit non-exhaustive. I don't know what else to say.
If it's not financially viable to invest in getting new people to the game, then I personally think it will be hard to attract new people to it. I have no doubt we, as a community, will do our best, even more so with the open license.
I only partially disagree. While we agree in that they are important, I do not thing it is not clear. It may be unviable, it may be too costly, it may be too long, and it can be clearer. To try or not to try it's not my decision to make, but it's clear there is a need for some people.
I'll really stop beating this drum now. I apologize if I sounded too harsh, I get a bit vehement when something interests me.
I wholeheartedly agree with this idea.
I do not agree that actual play is a shadow. I have all of that in the saga I'm running, and my troupe is invested in this game. We play weekly and are going to have our 65th session next Wednesday. It is not a dream, it is a reality constructed from work and compromise as a troupe.
It comes from stubbornness and from not wanting others to jump the same hurdles as I had to do, because I know if I had had the guidance I can provide now in a book, everything would have been way easier. I would not be so arrogant as to decide I have the key to playing this game and need to usher new players into my way of playing it.
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I do want to say that we really appreciate this discussion. I think it's very valuable and it certainly has me thinking about future products I would want to see. I do want to be crystal clear that what we can do with ArM5D has practical limits, and there's just not time in the calendar for major revisions of what we are working with right now. But awareness of our limitations as a publisher, and how we (and me personally) are a roadblock to development of many awesome ArM products that could exist is a core motivation for open licensing ArM.
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That sounds fantastic.
That is all perfectly understandable, John. Thank you for your kind words and transparency. Excited for what's to come 
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New to the forums, and this has been a fascinating read. I thought my perspective might be worth sharing.
I've been GMing since the late '80s, and was curious about Ars for many years but always intimidated by the prospect of running it. A few years ago, a friend pitched it to our group and we all jumped at the chance to play. The GM and one of the players were both longtime Ars players with a deep knowledge of and love for the setting and the game. That campaign ran for three years, and stands as an all-time favorite for me. (I'd happily still be playing it.)
That campaign also showed me a path to running the game myself. Our GM's initial approach was to -- with group agreement to this approach -- make some big choices for us up front: spring covenant (well, chapterhouse), Rhine Tribunal, strong framing for the hook, here's where your chapterhouse will be located, and here's what's actually there when you arrive.
He followed this up with a steady progression through core components of the game: A bandit attack, giving us a chance to see combat in action and how our magi might interact with it. A scheming covenant in charge of our chapterhouse, which we turned into an immediate goal to achieve independence. A political scuffle with the local lord, so we could learn about the Order's take on these sorts of interactions. A nearby urgent threat. A distant but pressing medium-term threat-slash-opportunity. A visit from our local redcap, and later a Quaesitor, among other introductions to the wider Order politics in our Tribunal. A couple seasons of downtime to introduce those mechanics.
Once the hard framing was done, and the guard rails were removed, we had a sandbox full of interesting toys, a working knowledge of all of our characters, our chapterhouse, the Tribunal, and the wider world, and we were off and running.
I'm not sure if it can be generalized beyond my own anecdotal experience, but one of the biggest takeaways for me was how important several elements of that experience were to my enjoyment of it and my understanding of a way I could run Ars myself:
- Discussing the complexity of the game and the benefit of easing us into it right up front
- Having several big decisions -- things I'd usually default to deciding as a group -- made for us by GM fiat because they would make the on ramp into play less daunting
- The nature of those decisions, carefully chosen to fit our group's level of Ars experience
- An approach to pacing, and sandbox creation, that gelled with how I like to approach RPGs
- A series of what were essentially introductory sessions for each major mechanical element of the game
There's a lot of stuff in this post that might be unique to my group, our GM, or me, but maybe there's something in there that could be useful in this discussion.
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That sounds like a superb introduction!
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One relevant point I will make is around 2015 I started a game with a player who had tried, not played, Ars Magica once before. After making magi, companions, and grogs for all 5 players and defining the covenant (income sources, library etc), the group realized they had spent 3 sessions on just planning to play the game and... Promptly abandoned the game never to try again.
I am not saying this is the fault of the game or current advice. Yet, any extra explanations for new players and GMs, to whatever minor degree is still possible, would be of a huge benefit to the game.
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Well, it's not clear to me. It might well be easier for you to see how to write this than it is for me — it is, after all, more than thirty years since I was a novice SG. The open licensing means that you will be able to give it a go.
I agree with you. I had it in a couple of sagas I ran and one I played in. It's not an illusion.
I think what we want is @Corbeau's SG in a box. That is something that can be worked on.
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