My current saga has 6 players (including the alternating story guides). Typically, anywhere from 2 to 4 magi go out on an adventure. Almost never just 1 magus.
What’s your typical number of magi on an adventure?
As many as feel they can justify it, as everyone wants to play with the powerful characters! In practice, 2-3 magi and a couple of companions.
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2-3 magi is the norm, yeah.
I really do want to do the 1 magus 1 companion and a few grogs structure but in practice I find that players often want to go out with their magi and the SG can’t really say “no, your magus may not go.”
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One way of handling that, accepted by the troupe, is:
- 2 magi who are the most plausiblely connected to the actual story;
- 1 non-PC mage(played by a player during that particular adventure) known and liked by the PCs or players (that makes it harder to use that mage as a cannon fodder) if that person is somehow connected to that particular adventure/happening; (written to be a realistic character instead of a powerful one);
- 1-2 companion/grog who are an important connection for the missing PC mage(s).( That is also to prevent using them as cannon fodder.)
That's how you can manage:
- Having less magi present;
- By letting players to choose a character for the following 1-3 sessions, you give them some agency and opportunity to explore different mechanics, or make the dramatic moves without endangering their own “pet PC”.
- Giving agency to the player who plays the companion/grog character by ensuring s/he is the “vicar”/legate of the non-present mage, therefore has some words in important matters.
- Let the players explore different play styles by using magi from different Houses (last time a player run Urgen ex Bjornaer, the famous bear archimage and former Primus. Has a very special power dynamics during those sessions
)
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0-3 Magi, though being on the lower end is more common than on the upper end of that range. That is to say, normally there is only one and often times no Magi on an adventure.
Seriously, it quickly gets very boring with many Magi once you get past a certain power point. Even one is overkill for most situations, but is along specifically because they are directly interested. Otherwise, they are mostly “Pfffff, we have servants for that”. If there are multiple magi involved, it is normally something social that can not be fixed with magic like a fair or tribunal. Most of the time they are just too busy doing “important magic stuff”.
We play a lot of Grog and familiar games.
EDIT: Everyone’s familiars are played by someone else, which is required to get them at the Companion power level (RoP: M, p.34, the Magic Might column). We all have two Companions, generally an action/adventure one and a social/support one. And we all have favored Grogs, both to personally play and ones that everyone just likes.
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In the last game with multiple players I had, all players present. We focused mainly on magical investigations, combat and negotiations with either other supernatural or magical or non-hermetic wizards.
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I like the idea of having other players play the familiars!
Expeditions, we generally go with one, but sometimes 2. If something goes wrong, we may show up with multiple magi to make sure things get done.
We have had incursion to our covenant. For reasons, we knew when and where they were going to attack from. That was all magi on deck.
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Typically my 4 player saga sends 2 magi on adventures. In my previous sagas, the pair of wizards frequently evolved to just 1 wizard as they got more versatile on the actual adventures and everyone got more and more into their own personal interests that other wizards’ adventures would be a distraction from.
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We have one player who always plays his mage because he hasn’t made a companion and won’t play a grog that he doesn’t “have a connection” with. One character has a redcap who is out two seasons of the year doing his thing so he’s either missing adventures or the only one it’s happening too. The other players are willing to play whatever makes sense for them but the adventure is usually at least half magi. The last ‘combat’ mission, fighting off ghost vikings, had all of the mages come out.
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Sounds like an adventure (or several adventures) needs to happen during Lab Season.
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My experience is very much the same as Troy, but even at lower power levels.
Grogs and companions exist so that magi might focus on their studies, so in general our troupe considers it a victory of sorts when they manage to accomplish a goal without magi getting involved. So, it's 0 magi more often than not, with 1 magus most of the remaining time. Very occasionally (less than 1 story in 20), we have the full complement of magi of our covenant (3), either for Hermetic social stuff such as a Tribunal, or for the occasional, epic story where the full might of the covenant must be deployed.
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because he hasn’t made a companion and won’t play a grog that he doesn’t “have a connection” with. One character has a redcap who is out two seasons of the year doing his thing so he’s either missing adventures or the only one it’s happening too
I will say- a redcap can to my knowledge adventure as part of their seasonal work. Their duty is effectively “contribute to the Order”, and supporting a covenant via adventures is likely considered a valid way to do so.
If a Redcap misses a season or two of his duties he
can make it up the following year, but if the time was
lost because of other laudable activities of great service
to the Order (such as helping to build a covenant,
copying books for important magi, or assisting a
Quaesitor with an investigation)…
it is unlikely that this failure would
be counted against him
pg 92 of True Lineages. Granted it could be read as “it requires the whole season to be taken up”, but I’d be inclined to take a more loose interpetation (although I generally let companions get away with working less seasons so I am biased)
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His whole character concept is he’s the biggest wheeler and dealer in the order so he hits up every covenant in two tribunals and travels the whole season. So he’s happy doing his thing. He gets involved in enough when he’s “home”
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Valid
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