I agree that the background needs to be lightened a bit to make it more readable.
It might just be me, because nobody else has bothered saying it, but I find the fact that different chapters might have different color for their headlines to be weird. I think the headlines from the Characters chapter work better for me. Yes, I do see that the headlines color matches the color of the bar at the bottom, and it's lovely, but I don't like it changing color throughout the book.
I notice that the old PDFs load instantaneously, even Against the Dark and the Sundered Eagle only have a slight stutter when moving forward 3 pages.
I understand the preview is not optimized, but right now it takes a few seconds. I hope you will offer a PDF just as fast as the original rulebook. And better indexed if you can, when spell cover from p111 to p163 you have to guess where you'll find Corpus.
So, I strongly second Kandahar on the lightweight fast PDF.
Since it’s not too late, I want to be specific. I like this layout very much. The color coded chapters are useful and on brand. My readability concerns were made easier when I saw it on a desktop screen. But I think the darkening corners gets in the way of the text. Image attached.
Speaking of which, I feel the header for Stress die feels a bit off with the rest of the design.
I can pinpoint exactly.
There seem to be something weird happening with the lower curve suggesting a 3D effect that’s inconsistent with the upper lack of curve and right angles.
And the outline is really thick compared with the finer lines used elsewhere.
I think there’s probably a way to tweak the header used for this kind of inserts to make them fit better.
And as the layout is still in progress, I hope this should get fixed, but right now, there an Abilities section starting at the bottom of a page, that’s a bit orphaned on page 49. It would feel much better on the next page.
(Also, is it impossible to have each magus pre-gen on its own page with an illustration, as was done in the French / Spanish lines ?)
I find that the dark blue fonts generally work considerably better than the red and green text, although I do enjoy the color coding of the chapters' margins. I find boxes and ribbons that break those margins irritating and ugly. Again, the background blue boxes and ribbons provide the best contrast to complementary gold/yellow script and against the background.
I don't think anybody is arguing the artists are overpaid. Instead, at a $150 price point, the art should be enticing.
I want the updated organization and error-corrected/clarified text to improve usability of the text (I do not need the rules, I already have them) in game.
I also would like to expand the appeal of ArM5 to newbies; eye-catching graphics do that. A price-point of $150 does not; all the more reason to show off the art in the book that I have.
I don't want a money-grab of the existing fan base. I'm hoping sufficient interest will be there to fund art enhancing stretch goals.
Atlas has already spent about $20,000 on new art, some of which you have seen. (For scale, that's rather more than they've spent on words, even including what they paid for the words first time around.) The reused art is where they cannot afford more new art. There will be stretch goals for more art, but there will not be enough money to replace or customise everything.
Yes, alas. You would think (and we did) that Atlas would be able to use that art, but, although I don't know the details, it turned out to be impossible. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when John Nephew confirmed that. (On the question of paying for new art to play the same role, see above.)
The weight of the background is being fiddled with, among other things. There is likely to be a version of the PDF with no parchment background at all, but we can't do that for the printed book. Thanks for the comments; they are useful.
The French Ludopathes going bankrupt probably did not help. (The art for the French and Spanish line was commissioned kind of jointly by Holocubiertas and Ludopathes, so this likely means you would have to deal with (nullptr) to solve that issue, which is obviously complicated)
And even for Arts where Holocuiberta has all the rights, there would probably be costs anyways.
Let's hope the stretch goals for more arts can be reached.
Well, Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game currently sits at 9.5M $, so here's hoping....
Even if we did raise $10M, commissioning as much new art as some people seem to want would push the publication back by a year or so (very rough guess by me), which is difficult to do when you have a release date on the page.
Very glad to hear this. Removing the faux parchment background from the pdf will help a lot with using e-readers.
Hello everybody.
I am really excited about the open license. Ars Magica was the first RPG that I played and – in my opinion – still the best.
I am now designing setting guides and adventures for Vortex Verlag, a German indie company. So far, we have only released for 5e, but we are thinking about extending our upcoming project (Serenissima Obscura) for other systems. Ars Magica is on top of our list because I and my co-author Andreas have mastered ArM campaigns for over 20 years and have translated two versions of ArM (2nd and 4th edition) into German. So we feel very confident when it comes to the spirit and rules of the game.
Check out our project: Serenissima Obscura – Vortex Verlag
BTW: looked at the preview copy. Wonderful!
Good luck to everyone,
Melina Sedó
for Vortex Vetlag
Hello folks. I just finished putting together the feedback form we'll give to backers, to get their input on the advance chapters of the book they'll be getting after the campaign. It occurred to me to post it here now, so you can use it for the first three chapters in the press release sample, if you like. Enjoy!
Great to see you here, Melina! We're excited to see Serenissima Obscura develop.
