How to make adventure design easier ?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Yeah, definitely more words in this response :smiley:

Actually - yes. But at any rate - I find that combat is extremely important for my games. It can come up very rarely, but even then it kinda dominates other aspects of the saga. When you have the power to kill the local faerie lord, diplomacy with him plays very differently than when you don't. Even if it never actually comes to combat. The dynamics are different.

Unfortunately, my current players are specifically interested in combat against Flambeau magi. Not monsters. Which is much more frustrating, as Hermetic NPCs and related plot-lines are much harder. But I digress...

I think the "frosting on the cookie" is a good analogy, yes.

I don't think it really harms the game. I frankly see more difference in D&D, but I really don't want to turn this to a pissing contest. The point is that just like having an underlying core of Might score does not make all creatures the same, an underlying score of Might score for magi won't make them all the same.

That's a fair point. Now I don't see magi as being in general vulnerable to such threats, since they can learn to overcome them fairly easily. But I can see others thinking of and using magi like this.

The two modes of adventure design are not in conflict.

To drag D&D (or Pathfinder) again into this - DMs usually don't randomly pick monsters of appropriate level from the Monster Manual and call it "an adventure". They usually spring their adventure ideas from exactly the same game contract and player expectations and discussions, albeit perhaps less the game-mechanical elements like story flaws (although 13th Age, for example, has a "one unique thing" and "icon relationships" that pretty much fill the same role). The fact that adventure design is so mechanical in terms of "You need X monsters of level Y" is still a huge help, because it helps the DM wrap an action-adventure around this basic structure. It helps a lot. A lot.

IF we could have something like for Ars Magica, I think it would be great. I don't know how it could be done, however. As I said above, in retrospect the lack of "party level" means that even if we standardize the effect of character level/Might we still won't be left with a way to build encounters that will be a good challenge for all (major) player characters.

What we need instead, it appears to me, is a mechanic to help construct something like the "archetypal" adventure mentioned above. Something that helps you think up what clues the PCs can uncover, what minions or problems they'll face, and, yes, what final enemy they will face. Instead of "You need X monsters of Y level for this encounter", perhaps "You need X clues of Y difficulty in this locale; here is a list of clue-types of this difficulty that you might want to draw on". I don't know if making such a system is really possible, or would be worthwhile.

22

Some of us don't find this to be a loop-hole.

-Ben.

23

My Ars campaigns have never been like D&D adventuires. Well, yeah, some have, but this is not how a saga is built. When the magi are in a pitched battle, it tends to be a situation where theya re incentral stage massacring enemies, with no real danger to themselves. THat is not hiow D&D is supposed to play. The important issue here was what the magi would earn as a reputation and the social, hermetic and economic consequences of their act, not if "the enemy boss" would harm them.

In my troupe magi tend to be powerhouses. The adventures are not designed to challenge them on a direct power basis, but to affect them on the consequences of them using massive power freely. Ars is not a combat game in my troupe, but a social game. You can kill all you want, but do you want to?

And indirect damage is not a problem since direct damage has almost the same killing power anyway. MR is not a major concern given the artillery magi wield in 5th edition.

For Ars, I know that my troupe can play through all the adventures in TOME or the new book on adventures 8can't recall the name). or calebais. I also know that they can do that being ubber magi from our last major saga, hedgies, companions or even a grog-only party. The adventures will play very differently, but one thing that is great about this is that you do not need to solve everything by whacking stuff. IN fact some of the parties would get their asses kicked if they tried. And I love that :slight_smile: Having several resolution mechanisms works well for us :slight_smile: And yes, negotiations with the fae prince work differently depending on your power level. Where is the problem? The fact that you can kick him does not mean that he will allow you any easier access to his vis sources if you act all cocky. he can dry them up, you know :slight_smile: Now, what was your all-important firepower, you said? :wink:

Xavi

24

When I do design Ars Magica adventures to my players, I usually do not calculate Challenge Rating a la D&D to match their "level of experience". Instead I build up problems and encounters that they might solve. Some of these has been a cakewalk, other times they were forced to run away and come back later and at one time I made them thing that they solved the problem and after they left, the problem grew subtly and became even stronger for when the players did return.

What I want to say with this is that when I design the weekly adventure, I take a quick glance of all my player characters, but i do not customize the adventure so that the players can solve it. If they can't solve it, there are always NPCs to hire or maybe if it is not a threat they can go home and study what they need to complete it, or they have to run away, gather their grogs, allies and maybe hire mercenaries in order to vanquish the problem.

As long as they are smart and do not happen to be on the receiving end of an angry lady luck, they will make it. Sometimes the encounters change one or more of the characters in a permanent way or in their focus of their study. But if I toss in a faerie dragon I would not let it backstab the gang in order to kill it before they know what they are up against, they would get the oppertunity to learn what they are up against if they are smart and my players have learned that being smart is important with me as a GM.

25

Hermetic magi[1] are harder, yes, but, IMO they are the only worthy long term opponents. Everyone has a weakness, the key is finding it. The weakness is the McGuffin, and it's not necessarily a thing, it could be knowledge. The most important or action packed part of a story is going to happen while acquiring the McGuffin. Everything after that is epilogue, by and large.

It wasn't my intent to make this a contest about which system is better. That being said, if you find another system much more compelling you have to ask yourself, why are you trying to make Ars more like that other system? What are you hoping to gain in the process, and once you've identified a path, how do you measure whether it stacks up. I don't want a leveling system in Ars. I'm not going to make one, period. This idea of might for magi is a type of leveling system.

This is the thing about magi. They are not (all that) vulnerable if they are prepared against the threat. Sagas probably go something like: establish big bad enemy, identify which magus or maga is responsible for learning about the big bad enemy, other magi defend the covenant or acquire resources as suits their specialties. Everyone is working together for defeating the common bad enemy, but as they can do it best, as it fits the character. Combat magi and magae fight minions of the big bad enemy weakening him for the final showdown, non-combatants are isolating him from his political and economic bases.

Is every magus going on these adventures, or are you limiting to one or two? Ars Magica magi are superheroes. There's a reason only one or two go on an adventure. Other players play companions and/or grogs. Grogs steal the scenes, create more trouble than they are worth, or actually come in and save the day when the superheroes get in over their head.

My mechanic is evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the players and characters going on the mission and design appropriately to that group. If the players suddenly change their mind and want to take their magi (as in each player wants to take his or her magus/maga), then it will be a short adventure. That's OK, to a point, there's a tradeoff when players take their magus into the field. They don't advance quite as fast with regards to Arts and spells. There's no one-size-fits-all approach. It would be nice if there were, but I don't see any of your proposed changes actually doing anything to build compelling stories for characters without the underlying work I outlined as part of my mechanic.

[1] I've recently developed a character who is all about counter spelling. She has a few finesse based attacks (that use the "loophole") but by and large she relies upon their grogs. When magi or magical beasties figure it out, her spells are capable of protecting them, too. A version of Wizard's Leap that she can cast on Grogs, and can cast 4 (or is it 5?) copies and relocate them out of danger, or, move them up into attack position earlier! They blast someone with Ball of Abysmal Flame, she its it with Mighty Torrent of Water, if the opponent throws two, so can she. If they throw more, well, she can switch to her PeVi spell which can destroy up to 6 copies. She's just started play, but I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with her.

26

This also comes back to manner in which the storyguides present the Order ("inclusive and social" versus "reclusive and suspicious" versus something inbetween), the availability of texts and vis, the kinds of threats in the area which demand the attention of the magi (it's hard to gain vast cosmic power when you're regularly addressing smaller issues), and the number of uninterrupted research seasons. All of these things can affect the tenor of the saga and the relative power levels.

However-- there is a slight guide to power levels in RoP:M, concerning what should qualify as a grog/companion at various levels of play, but I look at that as a guideline.

-Ben.

27

Yes indeed. My bottom line from this whole discussion is that for me, "reasonable" assumptions lead to rapidly escalating power. But that's just my opinion, and it was certainly not my intention to drag the thread down that rabbit hole.

My problem is more that those Flambeau have too many weaknesses. I mean, take Archmagus Philipus Niger (GotF p. 59). The guy doesn't even pack a Wizard's Sidestep. He's never heard of invisibility, either - which means he basically has no ability to sense my PCs and affect them with his magic. He's got some nice Parma, but that won't help him against the loop-hole. In a fight between this great archmage and my PCs, my PCs are likely to win.

Now my PCs won't be facing Philipus Niger. But figuring out how to produce realistic and fun Flambeau magi that can stand up to a combat-savvy Hermetic opponent (rather than monsters) is not easy.

It is a leveling system, yes. What I suggested it can give us is a way to easily design encounters. Assuming this is out of the picture, however, the benefits are of course far lesser.

The main benefit for the (Parma + Form = Soak) system is that it closes the aiming loophole. It also makes big spells matter again.

Right now, an encounter with Philipus Niger is very likely to end with my rock-throwing PC (Tophus) hurling a rock at him and killing him. The aiming roll is fairly easy, there is no MR, and the damage is very high - so Niger will probably die. It thus pretty much becomes a contest about who pulls off the gun faster - the archmage, or the journeyman magus straight out of gauntlet.

With (Parma x 5 + Form = Soak), Niger suddenly has Soak 42 against Terram. That's truly massive - the rock just bounces off harmlessly. Parma once again protects the magus well against fellow magi. To affect Niger with a Terram spell would now require something like a level 50 spell, doing +40 in damage at Voice range. Regardless of whether it's aimed. This still isn't the right balance in my opinion, but the point is you will need to whip out some huge natural effect to affect the magus, or alternatively to launch a small highly supernatural effect (like changing him to a fish) with very high Penetration.

That's fair enough, but it isn't much of a "mechanic".

The D&D CR mechanic does definitely help the SG easily string together encounters, which helps him be able to devote much more time to consider plots and tailor-fit the adventure to the characters' specific strengths and so on. I no longer think the Might system will serve that for ArM.

Didn't we just agree that ArM is not about combat ? Then why will you have fun playing this combat character :wink: I think ArM is more about combat than is being "admitted" here in this thread, but of course this is just my own preference. YMMV. It's all good. I do feel the game will benefit from a better combat system. One aspect of that is that archmagi are currently paper tigers that collapse as soon as you give them a god heave; I think a level-system can change that, and I think changing that would be a good thing.

Yair

28

Fair enough-- what do you think of the baselines provided in RoP:M? (I believe grog-level creatures for a High Magic saga are considered Might 10 on that chart, but I claim Serf's Parma.)

I think the key lies in returning to a key tenet of the game-- the long-term nature of Ars. Certainly, the first foe the magi face, even if it is Philipus Niger, may be completely caught off-guard by the flung-rock-technique (although, being a Flambeau, he's probably aware of the style and the paradigm, so he'd probably be able to whip up a ReTe15 diameter ward against stone, or a fast-cast MuTe10 to make the rock a harmless mist for a moment, but probably using vis, I imagine--again, Serf's Parma) as long as the attack is an absolute surprise. (That's the linchpin in a confrontation against a Hermetic opponent, I think.) But let's assume your (first) opponent is killed. That's ok, because:

  1. He/She/It probably wasn't working alone. There are other members who go in motion now.
  2. The covenant magi have revealed they are enemies of the saga's bad guys. They may not know who these other members are.
  3. The covenant magi have potentially (I can't help it) thrown the first stone. There's political fallout from such an action, even with proof on their side. They have to defend their actions, which consumes their focus and time.

Now, with time to respond, the League of Evil Magi begin to prepare their own offensives. You want to watch player magi breakout the emergency small clothes? Hit them with a PeVi effect that targets their Longevity Ritual. That's going to get them off the backs of the bad guys for a season. Your enemy magi start to use the structure of the Order against characters, bringing political issues, perhaps influencing (ReMe? perhaps) Bonisagi to steal apprentices, eremites to challenge vis sites, interfering with Redcaps bound for their covenant. The BadGuys are liberated from the rules of the Order until they're killed, or overtly exposed in their violations, while the player magi must follow the rules until they can expose the BadGuys and get them Marched-- and you've got one shot for that every 7 years, unless you can convince the Head Quasitor to meet the Praeco and call an emergency Tribunal. Again, more time and energy not being spent hunting BadGuys.

All this time, they're preparing for what the players have shown they can do.

Your answer is not a single foe, but a small cabal which then responds to the player magi. They go into the same process as player magi-- learning weaknesses, seeking connections, preparing to attack in the same way the players hope to-- in that overwhelming initial strike which leaves your foe broken and in your power, able to reveal sources of power, vis, books, and allies.

(Side note, Niger's Te score does add to his soak against that rock, so there's a little bit more there, too)

I don't think archmagi are the paper tigers you propose. I think for them to be so easily defeated means establishing surprise, on a battlefield of the player magi's choosing, when the target is also unprepared, and there's both political proof and support on hand to exculpate the attackers for their deed, because if there's more than one participant, then there's a chance that a secret assassination will later become public, and then there'd be even more hell to pay. That's a lot of effort, and if they've gone to that effort, laid the groundwork to create the situation while keeping their activities completely hidden from the rest of the Tribunal's (or Order's) society, then I think they've earned their well placed stone.

I think the important aspect to establishing proper challenges is making sure your stories are long-term, which give you the time and opportunity to decide the best challenge level you want to present your group. The storyguide has the benefit of holding all the cards, and so a level-challenge system is only so good as your initial presumption of escalating power. The level-challenge system which works for your troupe might (heh!) blow my players' magi to bits, and in any case, it'll need to be fine-tuned.

The only baseline I think I've tried working to in the past is this-- "A Might 20 creature should be a reasonable-to-hard challenge for a single magus just out of Gauntlet." Then, using that starting point, I take the curve to adjustment based on the troupe and the saga. There's just too many other variables out there to do it otherwise, between number of magi in a group facing your foes, number of foes, Aura, Arcane Connections, specialties, foci, vis, items with Penetration. All of it goes into the soup in a way you cannot easily calculate.

-Ben.

29

I wouldn't ever use a canonical magus that is fully published with complete Arts and grimoire. They are developed with 30 xp per year and buying spells with xp. That is pretty limiting. All my antagonist magi get a full work up. I'd revise Niger heavily, and actually did Rotgiers from The Lion and the Lily.

30

Change the stats mid combat. In ArM2, if the dragon was killed too easily, it was your job as SG to give it corrosive blood.

31

These forums need a "+1"or a "favorite"option, because I'd be clicking the heck out of it right now. I had a SG do something similar, and the rough and tumble grog suddenly turned to stone from the navel down after he hit the dragon with a heavy wound. That changed the tenor of the encounter fast. The dragon ended up escaping (the magus with those grogs was not terribly elemental/combat capable), but we were able to research for a season (based on the blood, scales, and grog's body) and learn PeTe would work against it, and we had a Terram specialist, so that worked out better the second time-- plus, another of the covenant fixed a vial of the blood as an arcane connection (in case it went to sleep for a while after being wounded), so the Terram specialist was ready to rock and roll when he finally found it.

-Ben.

32

Thanks for all the advice. I'll be using some of it :slight_smile:
My PCs actually are the BadGuys. Their long-term goal is to destroy half the Order and re-establish House Diedne... but hey, that certainly gives me some story ideas to work off.

That's a reasonable baseline. My preferred guideline is more like "Might 5 is a minion, but its MR still should count for something; Might 10-15 is reasonable challenge for a starting magus; Might 25 is a local lord, basically impervious to a starting magus; Might 50 is the biggest thing this side of the Realms, and can only be affected with great difficulty with the strongest magic; Might 75 is one of the strongest things in existence, affecting it is a truly legendary feat; Might 100 is the metaphysical axis the world hinges upon, the strongest beings in existence (sans God), completely beyond the pale". A bit more detailed :smiley: And core ArM5 certainly doesn't work like that [for me; YMMV], even if at times the flavor text pretends it does.

33

I wanted to circle back around to this.

I never agreed that Ars is not about combat. I was suggesting that combat isn't the only form of conflict available, and that magic can be useful in many different forms of conflict. I was also using my character as an example of the kinds of stories I am interested in participating in, with this character. which creates an implicit game contract (if I never say anything to the SG). If I create a character that has zero combat capability, then I'm saying to the SG that I'm not interested in stories that involve combat. That doesn't mean I can't participate, it's just not going to be something the character can do all that well, although I, as a player, might really enjoy it.

I think any character should collapse if you give them a good heave. The trick is finding out what that heave is.

My standard is to give 40 xp per year, 10 xp per season, and allow magi to take a season off to do labwork (they lose 10 xp for that season), which means learn spells[1] and other lab work. You need to have a rough idea of what covenant the npc is at, and what available lab texts are reasonable for them to acquire. They can then start learning a mess of spells from lab texts, get a familiar, make a talisman, whatever. But bottom line, these characters must be, should be built from the ground up and they should be long term antagonists for your players to deal with.

[1] IF they can learn a level 20 spell in 2 seasons, they're still getting an equivalent amount of XP, based on the RAW method for learning spells coming from XP. If they can learn a level 20 spell in one season, they're starting to come out ahead.

34

That's just it - that I find ArM characters tend to be built for combat (not solely for combat, but still), so the implied contract here is "I want my magus to see some combat". To me, this even suggests "I want to be challenged in combat", because wiping the floor with your opponents isn't nearly as rewarding as winning a tough fight. Hence - the need for some in-game mechanics to help the SG design challenging - but not overwhelming - combat encounters.

For me, the problem is that doing that heaving is so easy. Unless the characters start arming themselves against every concievevable, remote threat - which quickly becomes quite a paranoid arms race.

That's a lot of work. I'm planning on doing something like this, but still - that's a lot of work. We really should have tools / system-design to make these kinds of things easier.

35

I made a rough-and-ready arts calculator for NPC magi that takes their Hermetic age and spits out three different arts templates: specialist, typical, generalist.

It allocates base xp for apprenticeship then a fixed number of xp per year (I should make it allocate more for youth and less as they age), then converts that into arts scores.

For when you quickly need 'arts for a wizard 35 years out of gauntlet' it's great. It's not super-accurate, but its usually good enough.

As for per-player balancing - it gets really tricky when you start talking specialists. Magi can be super scary in combat, but they can also be total wusses if their area of specialty isn't something with a combat focus.

It's one of the things I like about Ars Magica: age isn't necessarily an indicator of combat prowess.

36

There is a similar system in one of the Tales of Power adventures. Not as detailed as you mention, but it does a pretty good job IMO.

37

There are two things I'm a fan of for interplayer balancing.

  1. Niches. If Bob is great at Creo Te, and builds all their houses, Jim has hilariously cool combat tricks, and Mary has awesome wards they are all super useful. It basically auto-balances. Now, yes you need stories where they need to build buildings (or islands), and combat, and wards (although you always need more wards). Everyone shines.
  2. Support roles! It doesn't really matter how awesome someone is at warding their fellow magi if the other magi do all the work. They can't really overshadow anyone. Now you need a player who is okay with support, but if they are okay it prevents anyone being overshadowed. (Well them overshadowing anyone.) It might mean you need to rebalance the adventure of course...
38

In my experience, this is only OK in very small doses.

It is a very dangerous idea as it is all too easy, as storyguide, to fall into the trap of changing things to undermine the clever plans of the players/player characters. Storyguides sometimes forget that it is often all too transparent, to the players, when things are being shuffled around to frustrate the unexpected ideas (or luck) of the players, and I think that nothing kills the interest/fun in an adventure/scenario quicker than the players realising this.

39

For my two cents, I think that there are basically two "adventures" in ArM.

  • Stories which the player-characters proactively cause.
  • Stories which antagonist NPC characters cause.

The first sort basically write themselves; the players decide what the player characters are doing and go out and do it. For these kind of stories the storyguide, really just has to get out of the way, but he can "prepare" by thinking in advance about who the surrounding supernatural, and mundane inhabitants (and nearby magi) are. So when the player characters do something the storyguide has an idea about who might notice, who might be offended, who might be in the way, and what they might do about it. In this sort of story it is responsibility of the player to ensure that her character is doing something that makes an interesting story. It is perfectly fine for a player character to have a goal of sitting around in a lab working on some long-term Fabulous Extension of Hermetic Theory. But the cost, to the player, is that this is generally boring. So, it is possible for the players to thus preclude this kind of story by having player characters that are either too cautious or too boring. The storyguide can also preclude these sorts of stories, by being too aggressive at blocking the attempts of the player characters to do things.

For the second sort, I think that the important thing is for the storyguide to not worry about balance, whether each PC will have a chance to "shine" etc, but just to have a really clear idea of what the antagonist is trying to do, and how the antagonist thinks he/she will achieve that (and to pick an antagonist who is doing something that will run into the magi, of course). The story can then just naturally develop in-play based on the player character responses. Where these stories tend to run awry, in my experience, is when the storyguide doesn't have a clear idea about what the antagonist is actually trying to achieve, but instead has some sort of pre-planned "narrative" in mind. Maybe the storyguide thinks there will be an "investigative phase", followed by "a skirmish", followed by "a chase", followed by "a final showdown" (or whatever). The problem is that if the storyguide has such a pre-planned "narrative" then a lot of the in-play activity/decisions tend to be around frustrating the player's attempts to deviate from the "narrative".

40

I don't think adventures need to be about combat. But many adventures can benefit from an "action" component in one or two scenes. As for myself, I do like playing combat magi, but with depth of character. In fact, Roberto of Flambeau is such a well designed combat magus, that he hardly ever gets a chance to fight. SG's throw mysteries and riddles at him, and he (or I rather) am just not good at that. So I was forced to rely on developing depth of character.
:smiley:
Click the link and feel free to clone Roberto for your saga. Use him as a template for others.