Non-Magi Translating Laboratory Notes

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

In our saga, we have an Incomprehensible Inventive Genius who is generating really useful and innovative Regio-probing spells that nobody else can learn (including some experiments towards a breakthrough that slightly break the normal limits). They would be valuable for us, and excellent for exchange. Although he's willing to share his notes, none of the other magi in our covenant have had time to study them and reproduce his ideas. So if an ungifted scribe could do that work, we would definitely have arranged for that to happen by now. (As far as I can tell, this approach is the only way to work around the Incomprehensible flaw.)

So for us, this is quite an important task, and I don't feel it should be too easy, so I voted No in the poll. I also feel that it would be hard for a non-mage to understand the ideas involved, though not quite impossible.

(The other obvious use case is "you find the notes of a dead mage, and need to recover their ideas", but that hasn't come up for us yet.)

I am less convinced that working off a Lab Total is the right way to describe this task. It produces odd results. For example, we are in the position where our incomprehensible genius should spend a season researching a Creo Corpus spell purely so my healer mage can study it and get a leg-up on understanding his code. I'm also not convinced that higher level spells should be harder to follow than lower-level ones.

If I were writing the rules from scratch (which is a really bad idea!), I would probably make it some kind of Int + Magic Theory roll, perhaps target 15 or 18, with a +3 bonus for having the Gift and another +3 for being a Hermetic Mage (in the sense that you have opened the arts). This would be a seasonal activity, and repeat efforts would get a bonus for each previous season, probably a +1. This would allow an ungifted scribe with Magic Theory to decipher the notes with a few years' work, which I think I like.

There would also be a hefty penalty if the mage was being deliberately obscure in their notations, or else a separate "crack the concealments" roll.

I also agree with Daelnoron's suggestion that Enigmatic Wisdom should be helpful for this task. Unfortunately, our covenant has only one member of Criamon. No prizes for guessing which one he is,..

(PS Given when I'm posting, Happy Christmas/celebration of Mithras/Saturnalia/whatever else you want to all on the forum.)

42

In our saga, we have an Incomprehensible Inventive Genius who is generating really useful and innovative Regio-probing spells that nobody else can learn (including some experiments towards a breakthrough that slightly break the normal limits). They would be valuable for us, and excellent for exchange. Although he's willing to share his notes, none of the other magi in our covenant have had time to study them and reproduce his ideas.

It may be faster for him to simply teach the spells to another magus. There are still serious penalties to the lab totals, but potentially several spells can be conveyed at once -- and the new magus will (in the process of inventing the spells under the Incomprehensible's tutelage, end up with A} the spells. and B} their own (comprehensible) lab notes from inventing the spells. The new lab notes will be much easier to deal with.

43

That's a good point. I think when I looked at that approach it seemed to be much slower (we are talking about quite a few spells), but I could crunch the numbers again. It still requires a season from another mage, of course.

1 Like
44

Following-lab-notes is restricted to one TeFo per season.

Going with the all lab-notes approach then, there is a season of deciphering the notes, plus a season of using the notes to invent one TeFo (perhaps multiple spells). Direct teaching might grant more than one spell & multiple different TeFos, AND might be directly to the magus who is most likely to need the spells. If more than one spell is taught, then writing the pupil's lab notes out to 'clear' will happen at Latin x 20 levels per season and can be any spells known, unrestricted by lab totals.

The actual lab totals will, of course, affect your exact results. It was just an idea; I hoped it would be helpful, but every game is its' own thing.

45

Copying the lab notes of someone with Incomprehensible shouldn't remove the effects of the Incomprehensible flaw -- they're supposed to be faithful copies of the wizard's lab notes: they should carry along the effect of the Incomprehensible flaw too.

If someone learns something from the Incomprehensible lab notes and then writes out lab notes of their own, then those notes shouldn't still be Incomprehensible (although the originals and copies still are) since it's a re-invention by someone else, not a copy.

1 Like
46

The idea here is that mundanes could transcribe a lab text. But its just a copy, not a reinterpretation. A mundane scribe could write the text in a clean way, without abbreviations and shortcuts. But the mundane cannot reinvent the spell written in there, so if the magus is Incomprehensible, the resulting text would still be incomprehensible at the end... just... without shortcuts and abbreviations... and with clean letters.

47

There is a clear and large majority for "Yes", so I will do that, and use the simple rule for magi teaching the abbreviations noted above.

Thank you, everyone.

48

I hadn't thought of that, @Hyalus, and it's clearly a reasonable rule to play by. Rereading the rules, it's pretty clear that the investigating lab total would be halved, meaning more seasons would be needed to understand the coding. A shame, as it makes our problem even harder. Maybe I should be glad the poll went against me.

49

Actually, this has made me realize that Incomprehensible lab notes of a Breakthrough spell would be interesting loot to find from investigating a fallen covenant. Will have to be careful about the level, so it's close enough to be in reach but not trivially so.

2 Likes
50

Given the side chat I have just been having, do you want to add a special case for Incomprehensible magi, maybe that they need to spend two seasons? You might well think that is unnecessary fuss.

51

I think it probably is…

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52

Hmm, I'm late at the discussion, but for what it's worth: aesthetically, I truly dislike mechanics that encourage wizards to farm-out "wizardly stuff" to mundanes. They are profoundly un-mythical. For example, I dislike the fact that one of the most efficient ways for magi to learn Magic Theory is to have some high-Com mundanes devoted to learning it (from ample stores of tractatus, written by other mundanes) and then occasionally spend seasons teaching magi.

The same applies to lab notes. Figuring out what some other wizard - maybe an enemy vanquished in a wizard's war, or an ancient mentor lost to twilight - left in writing is the quintessential wizardly activity. Thus, I think that mundanes should not be able to help with lab texts: either they should not be able to translate lab texts ... or perhaps the entire rule about the need to translate lab texts should be ditched. Let's not forget it's an old old rule back from at least 2nd edition, when mundanes definitely could not help.

6 Likes
53

If I understand the proposal, a wizard can choose to explain their code to a mundane so they can do the copying. So the examples you give would not be affected.

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54

This!
So very this!

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55

I noticed for a while now, that some players prefer Ars to be a Simulation, providing a ruleset of physical and metaphysical laws to set their games in and others prefer Ars to be the framework of stories with a feeling of magi in mystical europe and what they would get up to.

I understand that both aren't entirely exclusive and I absolutely see the value of the former, just personally I'd prefer the latter and am always a little unhappy if we sacrifice the latter to suit the former.

It's why I tend to think of the results I want to achieve first and then tailor the rules to lead me there, rather than creating a cohesive set of rules even at the risk that the logical conclusion of these rules takes me away from the fun (or at least what I consider fun. No shade on those that like a mundane mage-translator guild, I'm just not one of them)

1 Like
56

I agree with this. I would also add copying books on the arts to this list, such as the concept of the scriptorium filled with mundanes with basic MT making copies of tractatus or summae on the arts.

57

For me I find the constant press to make mages omni-capable and reduce the usefulness of non magi extremely annoying at best. It kind of gives the entire game a "supremacist" feel in my opinion, even if it is essentially mage supremacists.

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58

For me, its because having simulation-heavy rules for magic enables the story. Or at least, enables the players to proactively make interesting choices. You can present them with a problem, and experienced players will be able to identify multiple magical solutions and decide which to pursue.

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59

On the other hand, I like that there are many open paths for magi.

It allows for a situation, where magi specialise in more than just their preferred arts and whether they enchant.

There is still plenty to do for mundane characters, especially downtime tasks and especially scholars. Most issues I experienced about mundanes feeling superfluous were out on adventures, where it would actually help to restrict these tasks to magi. It gives them more reason to stay at home and let the mundanes get the glory.

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60

I fully agree. That's what I like them for. If I need something out of the ordinary, I can after all still say "A non-hermetic wizard / warping / original research did it"

These specific rules we're talking about however, are not related to the function of magic and thus do not benefit the game in this sense.