Modern Ars Magica

Well, we seemed to manage it for the first four editions.

This is a bit dated now, but it might be helpful:

shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Pax+Hermetica
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Pax+ ... ic+History
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Pax+ ... +of+Hermes
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Pax+ ... +Geography
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/The+ ... e+Tribunal
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Character+Creation
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Revised+Combat+Rules
shrenewed.wetpaint.com/page/Pax+Hermetica+FAQ

Providing all the links since the links on SHR are a bit messed up...

Yay!

To join the love-fest; this seems like good idea!

However, I probably wouldn't break it down as a separate technology modifier. I would just use the Laboratory Virtues and Flaws system from Covenants. There's already Virtues and Flaws that represent "superior tools" etc. Technological advances are just an easy way to get these bonuses; you don't need to make a deal with artificer dwarves, you can just order stuff from a catalogue. And you can make up some Virtues and Flaws to represent having lots of beeping machines in the laboratory --- they just add to General Quality and/or Safety, they might reduce Warping, or whatever. End result is that new technology largely ends up as a bonus to the Lab Total. An advantage is that this doesn't really penalise too much character-concepts that don't adopt modern technology. As luddite characters can get basically the same bonuses, just through different means.

I don't think that I would cut down the actual time lab activities took though. It would get a bit fiddly if study was advancing on a seasons timetable and spells were being invented on a weekly/monthly schedule.

You're right. Studying time would have to be cut too.

The main thing is that if I'm playing in a modern setting set circa now, I wouldn't necessarily want it to begin to advance into a sci-fi setting.

Cutting study time starts to look a bit unrealistic though. I know that the study rules are just an abstraction, but in the modern world people do study/practice things for months and years in order to get any good. Modern people are not really individually any better/quicker at learning stuff than medieval ones.

If technology is just a sort of Lab Total bonus, then characters will potentially be able to do more in a season (because they have a higher Lab Total), but it will still take a season to do it.

Probably a good idea to keep the Limit of the Lunar Sphere then.

We ran the last couple of games like that, XP by season, labwork by month. The only real change needed to let that work fine was to change exposure XP to a base 3, ie. 1 per month and because of that cutting off the low end of Practise at 4 instead, we didn´t use 3 XP for practise much before that anyway so that didn´t really matter.

The big advantage you get from it is that aquiring spells and magic items is suddenly much more convenient(we tended to aquire those more by trade than by labwork before that simply because it was too expensive in time while fairly cheap in Vis, as by RAW you could often stock up on Vis quite fast), while XP progression is just slightly different, the 1 extra XP per season doesn´t really make much difference until magi gets really old so not a problem.

Nah, just make sure you have some sort of system to keep track and its not a problem.

Like, say using a Sight range Teleport spell between galaxies? :mrgreen:
The ultimate attack spell, teleport a star onto someone´s head, oops magi also autokills himself, bummer... :wink:

I think it might be better to make it something more generic, for the simple reason that today humans could travel to the Moon, or Mars for example and then this limit becomes strange one way or another, like how do you interpret the limit while on the Moon, it would be odd if magic suddenly stops working even for Range Personal just because someone managed to send off a magi to the Moon or maybe an extreme orbit.
I might suggest something like changing it to a limit based on size of whatever you´re on or possibly primary gravitational force of at least a certain strength. This could essentially replace the Lunar limit, maybe even still be the same in effect while on earth.

It is odd, but magic is odd. It's just another possible error in Hermetic Theory for House Bonisagus to research!

But making the Limit of the Lunar Sphere still apply is a great way to limit (at least some) sci-fi. It stops Sight Range getting out of hand. It means that you don't need to think up other rationales to stop magi setting up covenants on Mars, etc.

If you want sci-fi then sure get rid of the Lunar Sphere limit altogether, no need to explain how, just delete it. It was just an error in Hermetic Theory corrected sometime between 1220 and 2012 (or whenever).

That's how it works in the Night Watch Universe.

That's how it works in the Night Watch Universe.

I'm not talking about magic making the modern world Sci-Fi. I thinking that technology will start advancing us there on its own.

Basically, to me, the modern world moves a lot faster than Mythic Europe, and I would want the game to compensate.

100% agreement. The FATE Dresden rules are the best simile to Ars Magica that is actually tied to the Modern World with functioning mechanics.