New ability: Organization

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

I always assumed that Artes Liberales was the THEORY, not the PRACTICE: You know how a discourse needs to be made, but do not necessarily have the slightest presence performing it (or writing it down, for that part, but you know the theory of how to do it).

The maid can get autrocrat without much addo. I think you might be a little bit restrictive with your abilities here, but that is me. Administration doeszs not add much to my saga (in fact it detracts from it a lot) but if it works for yours, go ahead :slight_smile: As usual mileafges vary across sagas, but as it is, the rules quite support BOTH approaches without being stupid per se. :slight_smile:

I myself despise the level of DETAIL that the system implies and have diumped several abilities TOGETHER without creating new ones (2 supernatural lores only, precission and penetration are the same, shield & weapon has disappeared, athletics includes carouse and swiming....). I can easily see that you would feel like gnawing steel IMS :stuck_out_tongue: It works for us, though.

Since the important thing about the rules is that they allow you to tell a good story with your pals, as far as you are comfortable with them, go ahead :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

22

Swimming i can easily see included, but carouse??? A social skill included in a physical one? Ouch.

No biggie.

No biggie either, it might just be a bit hard to judge which can be combined. I would guess you joined Dominion and Infernal as one and the others as one?

:confused:
It can certainly be argued, but cant say i like it.

No, what we want are skills that doesnt "spill over" in such a way that it creates unintended proficiencies for a character.
Like Art.Lib. since including Rethorics can easily be argued to include the ability to be a good speaker. Which as you said yourself isnt the greatest idea.

Really, if you´re that much into having minimum amount of skills, you should be playing Uni-system rather than AM.
Magic system is much looser and differently weighted but it also lets you reduce the number of skills to 2-4.

23

In practical terms, we play a homebrew system, given the ammount of HR that we use.

Yes, we have Divine Lore (inf+div) & legend lore (Ifae + magic). There are only 3 realms IMS, so this is quite logical, really. And magi do not differentiate "by sensation" between a divine and an infernal aura.

If you take artes lib as the FORMAL knowledge, but not granting the ability to speak grandiously (that is what asocial skills are for, Atrt lib only gives a bonus there) the spillover is not amazing.

The case of carouse is for stamina: your tolerance to alcohol. For talking and singing while drinking there are other skills.

Obviously, under this, your organization wannabe skill would fall straight into profession:autocrat. I still fail to see what does Autocrat NOT cover for this organization thingy being needed. After all, we are just talking logistics here....

Cheers,

Xavi

24

Its not MY organisation skill. That was from the originator of the thread. NOT me.

The one we DO use, again, "Administration" does not fall under that. The opposite is far more likely and realistic even.

Which is why organisation, once again, falls under the skill Aministration. Which is most certainly NOT limited to logistics.
Autocrat by your argument then falls solidly under Leadership skill. Guess i just saved you another skill there.
I however do not want administrative skill as part of Leadership.

:unamused:
Suggest you reread the original description of the skill.
Its basically portrayed as the "Etiquette" skill of the "lower classes".
Sorry, simplifying a game by removing useful parts because it CAN be done is not something for me. If you´re that fanatical about it, why not just roll a die, even you win, odd you lose.
Forget Uni-system with its less than 20 skills total, you want the Tri-stat system instead, or maybe not, that still uses modifiers from its equivalent to V/F so i guess thats too much as well....
There´s reasonable, like cutting short on the "Lore" abilities if you really want to(i see no real reason for it) and including Swim with Athl. (which is still antihistorical), but you´re reducing the system down to less realistic AND less playable by that kind of arbitrary judgements, thats just no fun.

Guess you will choke once i get around to posting the mods we use, as it does include bit more than a half-dozen additional skills total.

25

Some time ago, I made the decision to not answer to gross oversimplifications about my own saga by people that have no idea what they are talking about.

As such, I will refrain from commenting that last post in depth.

Cheers,

Xavi

26

Profession: Maid.
This kind of thing is part of their job, after all.

Then, once again, I fail to see the problem. You seem to like an "administration" ability, and, in fact, use one. Fine for you! Some people don't care. Fine for them!

Oh, btw, in HoH: S, Artes Liberales can (and is) used in real, practical, debate.

Euh... Well... Sorry, but nope. You've got... Well, Etiquette for that, especially with the "peasants" specialisation.

Carouse is the ability to "enjoy oneself without suffering adverse effects". Sure, you can go to a tavern, make a party and use it to "have fun and gain friends among the lower classes nearly anywhere", but this does not covers "the social graces and how to behave in different situations", which is the realm of Etiquette.

Thus, I can very well understand some, if not most uses of Carouse (power drinking, staying sober...) being associated with stamina.
But then, who cares? Xavi likes it his way, you don't, I don't care much, and everybody is fine in his own corner of the Ars world :wink:

27

LMFAO

For a second I thought i stumbled onto the Berklist by mistake!
:mrgreen:

28

:laughing: :laughing: :blush:

29

Is the Berklist really this bad?

I was actually thinking of stumbling over there and checking it out one of these days, but not if it is like this thread.

30

The Berklist is utterly and truely awesome. I am the worst meanest Berklister of all time. I only rescently escaped from the Negative Zone where they imprisoned me though.

LOL, this thread isn't all that bad. Once in a while we magi need to debate on the tribunal floor, certamen, or even wizard war. Auctus ex dimicatione; "from conflict, growth".

I like some of Xavi's hombrewery. Don't want it for my own game, but I would like to play in his game or experiment with his brew. At the same time, they deserves to be rebuked. Xavi, I admonish you :exclamation: There, now it is done. :laughing:
They are flexing their muscles and defining boundaries. And if you watch the flames you will see light. For example, from this thread I am learning different ways to percieve the Craft and Profession Abilities. It is nice to have a catchall I suppose, but I'd like a list some of the most commonly encountered crafts and professions, still leaving it as catchall, but giving a useful roadmap when determining if something should be a craft or a specilization of a profession and so forth.

I see where Xavi is going, collapsing together Magic/Faerie and Divine/Infernal. I liked it better when it was just Legend Lore and Occult Lore. But things have also progressed. Back in the way back times, you had a separate attack and defense ability for each and every weapon; Mace Attack 3, Sword Attack 3, Sword Parry 2, Staff Block 2, and so on.

What would I do for organization? Well, if it is as a habbit, it should be a Personality Trait. Obsessed (tidyness, order, creature of habbit, etc). Organizing a group of people/critters requires Leadership. The actual task of organization is likethe stuff that rolls down hill. The lead magus of the covenant talks to the magus in charge of the library about a project, he has the Autocrat allocate recources, managment of these resources is duped off on the head librarian, who dumps a share off on his top scribes, who have the lowest servants stack all the pages in a nice neat pile. Pure Leadership. No one designed a flow chart or a graph or anything else requiring a new ability. If you want to design an organization as opposed to running it, well, I think that is a function of each specific profession or craft. A team of Blacksmiths? The guy with the best Craft-Blacksmith score would be put in charge by the Autocrat (middle management :wink:), and if he doesn't have leadership skill, he will rely on a buddy who does. Sometimes the true leader is the second in command. But the guy with the best skill will know the most efficient way to do it.

31

Depends. The Berklist can be something akin to Bagdad on a fury day sometimes, and at other times it is an amazing source of information. It is more on the pro-history than the pro-gaming side (meaning: historical accuracy tends to be parammount) and IMO it is the major source of the fact that sometimes Ars Magica is seens as a game for PhD in medieval history students. It is not, but given some debates ion the berklist you would think so.

The amazing thing about Ars Magica is that we were attracted by its rules and have ended discarding quite a lot of them and remained playing buy the setting. We LOVE the mythic europe setting. We have played high fanatasy and high history settings there, and it looks like those campaigns could have happened at the same time to us. :slight_smile: The idea of a covenant that grows and develops (see the recent explanations by Ryce / Gribble / Santiago on their covenant organic development) and the LOAD of legends to work from (take a look at a Micheluin guide for your area of play to find more stuff than you can possibly use!) makes for an amazing environment to roleplay and tell stories.

Ars Magica 5 has also made a great job at providing story hooks right from tghe RAW. THe saga and mythic europe chapters, along with the covenants chapter and some parts of the realms chapter are a work of art IMO. I have used several of the story hooks straight from the book and they have all worked perfectly. You can set a whole campaign just by the book easily. Something that is not as easy with other games. THe rest of the books are additional material, not "must have" expansions.

Anyway, I am ranting now, so I'll shut up :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

32

And we missed that :laughing:
Best thing is, it doesn't mean that you're nescessarily efficient, just that everything is neat and at its place. Like, you must get 5 different permissions to take a sword from the armory :laughing:

33

Exactly. And I am basing it on myself. I am a slob, but i compusively put everything in a specific place every time, and I can almost always find it right away. My ex was much cleaner but much more cluttered. No trash or dirty dishes like my foul male self, but her books were scattered under the couch, boxes upon boxes were randomly scattered about, and the coofe table retreated from the couch at the rate of about half-a-foot a week. So for me, being a slob is a personality trait, but so is my obsessive compulsion with putting things in their place.

34

That does sound like a minor (or major!) personality flaw to me, yup. well, it qwould be if it annoys you if people around you breaks your self-imposed order, at least.

Not the same as organization in the terms being discussed, though. IMO, at least. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi