Rules for new houses

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Is this for an online game? Asking because from what I have seen they are harder on troupe play.

Most of the AM games I have played in that have done troupe play, each of the players had a pool that they normally played in addition to the shared pool. In general the characters in a given players pool were associated with other Magi. This includes companions, familiars, and shield grogs. Several things are done to encourage it, such as familiars built/played by a different player build at companion power level while those built/played by the Magi player are built at a grog power level.

The goal is to have a pool of characters which the other players built and know that are involved in scenes and adventures involving a single Magus. If two of our eight Magi are involved in a trip to Tribunal, their shield grogs, familiars, apprentices, and any accompanying companions are generally all primarily played by the other players. Remaining players (if any) get first choice of characters from the general pool needed to round out the group. In general each player will end up with two characters with vastly different abilities so that they can be involved in the maximum amount of play (though those without a primary might take three). Since most of us are also secondary SG (along with being military friends who enjoy giving each other shiz), for something like a Tribunal the SG running that game will hand out sheets like those found in The Fallen Fane and let us go to town.

Something like this would be difficult to play online. It favors face to face groups who have been together for a while. My current group has been playing together on and off for ten years, while our current saga has just broken two years of play time. When the guy who plays my familiar starts emoting and talking in a certain way I know he is playing my familiar rather than another character (think little sarcastic & snobbish female cat, which is hilarious coming from a jacked 6'3" cheerful guy).

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22

You are right that my recent experience is online. My ancient experience AFAIR is not that different though. If I read you correctly, it is not something you expect to succeed every time or at first attempt in any case, isn't that right?

But yes, I agree, the visual cues that we have, easy to use, when we play face to face are important, both to remember characters and to remember players.

23

You are correct that it is not something I expect to succeed every time or on first attempt.

If your group members do not mostly/all have experience running games and playing lots of different characters, then Troupe play will run counter to their experience. If you have only ever run a single character in every RPG you play, you lack the experience needed to run several at once.

This can be overcome, such as by running stories that are essentially "One Shots" in which everyone plays a single character who is not their main one. Once the players have experience with several different characters in the Saga, you can try having games in which the jump between two of them they have played at some point in the session. This is how my current group eased into it, allowing the players who had never run a game to already have an understanding/play style of different characters when they were asked to jump between them mid game.