We have yet to experience a player death. Lots of character death, sure. No players.
That said, when I wrote bad things about That Other Game and ... most other RPGs actually, with respect to how their combat systems, it's in part because of the huge role that skill plays in the Ars Magica combat system. It affects initiative, attack and defense.
But even more so, it's the effect of skill on damage rolls. Or perhaps rather, the absence of damage rolls. the way attack advantage is a major contributor (indeed, often the major contributor) to damage. It is intuitive to me that a more skilled combatant is more likely to achieve a telling blow. This is not random - at least not purely random - so the idea of a roll to hit, then a fully independent roll for damage has bothered me since ... the mid 90'ies at least.
And as for FATE, I have little to no nice things to say/write about FATE. For those of you who have positive mentions thereof, I trust you have more positive experiences with it than I have. It wouldn't take much.
I found the other day, in the back of another Lion Rampant book, an announcement for the upcoming game Shining Armor, supplemental to and compatible with Ars Magica. So that must have been the planned knight game. Looked it up, and the story is that MRH cancelled it because of the popularity of Pendragon, and went and did World of Darkness instead.
I like it, it is fast with minimal amount of time spend looking thongs up and down. Most combats are done within 15 minutes, which is a big plus for me.
I cannot speak for the mass combat system, because our GM had modified a version of the L5R 3.e one to use instead.
I think that it wasn't really needed because Chivalry & Sorcery (still going strong) covers the Medieval millieu and did by the 80s Harn. Then you have so many games ranging from Dragon Warriors (low fantasy) to Maelstrom Donesday etc etc
Aren't all those games more fantasy than medieval? I know that C&S is a good base for a medieval knights game if you remove the elves and the dwarfs (or dwarves?) and most of the sorcery, but the authentic mythic reality is lost.
"Dwarves," since the C&S ones are very much Tolkien-based. The correct English used to be elfs and dwarfs: Tolkien used elves and dwarves both for reasons of linguistic taste, and to differentiate them from the elfs and dwarfs of popular 19th and 20th century imagination--to restore some of their dignity, more closely resembling the creatures of myth and folklore.
The irony is that post-Tolkien popular fantasy took his words and conceptions and rather debased them again.
Yes. For knights, especially; Renown would be the mechanic to use. Pendragon has a similar system, which they call Glory.
Clerics and rogues are less straightforward. For clerics, it might either be their standing within the church, or perhaps their reputation for honesty and righteousness in the population at large. For rogues, maybe infamy?
I'd be tempted to use wealth as the measure of success and influence for rogues. In movies, the thieves that are most respected are those who've made a lot of money. And having just one of the groups care about cash amuses me as a commentary on D&D,
