Hi,
Good by me.
Anyway,
Ken
2 Likes
I've got an interesting one - Expanded Encumbrance rules from Grogs.
That is, explaining, at least in short, what a unit of Load actually is (7 pounds) and if page count allows for it, giving basic rules for how much you can carry, lift over your head and drag along, etc.
In Core, Load is a largely abstract concept that doesn't see much use because of it.
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I know I'm going to sound like I'm repeating the same point from economics, so I'll stop at 1 post.
Encumbrance is dull. Even a few pages of an equipment list with weights, etc, boring. Think about the D&D and Pathfinder equipment lists with the oil, the lantern, or do you go fancy and get the bullseye lantern, the silk or hemp rope.
A basic encumbrance related to a minimum strength required to wear armour and weild weapons, I'm in support of.
The rest of the gear hand wave it.
Generally a troupe goes on an expedition and they know where they are going. If they are going to the mountains or in caves, they'll want some strong grogs to carry the winter bedding, ropes, climbing gear, lamp oil, etc.
Something to assist the hand waving, in the section about encumbrance, weapons, and armour some general guidelines. A paragraph such as the average person can comfortably carry their own bedding and 3 days worth of food. Maybe a table with what strength -5 through to +5 can carry, and some commentary about 8 hours of lamp oil can be carried instead of a days food etc.
The 8 hours lamp oil and 3 days food is completely made up, and I have no clue if they are close to reasonable. They are their just to illustrate the hand wave aspect.
I know I'm saying hand wave a fair bit, but the question is, do we want a 500 page Core rule book? An equipment list and more detailed encumbrance rules would fit well in that supplementary economics book.
The supplement could add a length of time one can be in armour before getting a penalty which is linked to stamina. If we were being serious, we should also talk about bulk, as while strength +5 guy can likely lift the weight of 20 halberds, good luck walking with it.
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I still use Coin weight Encumbrance for my OSR D&D games. The players are more into it than I am. I also have them count resources such as money, iron rations, water, and all that fun stuff.
I do not do it all the time. Just sometimes when it adds flavor to the experience at hand.
Same thing with Ars Magica. It is easier to hand wave away Encumbrance than it is to hand wave it back in.
Ars Magica has traditionally made a very sensible assumption that fighting men put their luggage down when fighting, meaning that it's only really weapons and armor that needs encumbrance values.
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That's only a reasonable assumption if they have time to put it down- in an ambush situation that may not be the case. The problem with genericized encumbrance is that it really depends on how it is being transported. On the outside of a pack unwieldiness is more significant than volume, while in the back of a cart volume is much more significant.
On the other hand I don't think Ars Magica is the right system to have a complex weight/volume/balance mechanism for every object. Weight and encumbrance should suffice where for something like a cart only weight would matter, and when being carried by a person only encumbrance.
IMO hand waving should be done by SG's and players in agreement, not by core rules.
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moved to the "more examples" thread...
Tactical Movement
Most RPG players want to know how fast an opponent can close on them or if they can reach something in combat, especially relative speeds.. Transposing the rules on Tactical Movement from LoM p 120 to CRB would be very useful.
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Leave that sort of thing to That Other Game. Or maybe GURPS. No-one much else cares.
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The general consensus has been to not include things like tactical movement and advanced combat options in the Core AM rules.
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What is this "That Other Game" you speak of?
I'd prefer not to speak IT's name, lest I call it into our presence.
It's a combat simulator masquerading as an RPG, known for its flying, fire breathing giant lizards that - for some reason - like to lair underground. That Game also has a thing about stuff like where exactly combaqtants are in relation to each other (though in practice, melee combatants tend to move around a fair bit) and passing strikes, called *Attacks of Opportunity' I believe.
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Ah, so you are speaking of certain modern versions of the original RPG, older versions of which had a combat system no more complex than that of Ars.
If you are speaking of Dungeons and Dragons, the very first RPG ever, I would ask that you take a respectful and reverent tone. There are also ten different editions of that game (they do not all have numbers), and the combat mechanics of ArM5 are very reminiscent of the Advanced version of that game. The legend has it that Ars Magica was originally created as a set of HRs for AD&D. Of the two creators of Ars Magica, one of them went on to create the modern version of D&D and the other one has created a variant system based on the current edition of the classic game.
Euphemisms I appreciate include "Original Role Playing Game", "The Classic Fantasy Game", "The First game about Magic", "The Grandfather of all RPGs", and anything else respectful of the history of our hobby.
This is the wrong place for this debate. I just had to react emotionally and for that I apologize.
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Whether GURPs, Fortified Underground Defense Installatione and Gargantuan Exothermic Flying reptiles or any other system, there are always rules for movement, which fall into two categories- mathematical or narrative. AM seems to favor narrative movement rules which is discontinuous with how much of the rest of the system relies on math. That being said, movement in Medieval Europe over a large scale is highly variable and if you are not using a tactical map then descriptions of movement in combat are both largely unhelpful (unless you enjoy applying Pythagorean's theorum on the fly, since not every distance will be included in a description), and very contraversial (what determines how fast a person can in fact move- what stats seperate Winston Chruchill from Jessie Owens? Do we need to calculate height in order to establish stride, etc). As such I think maintaining a largely narrative structure is a good idea with some sort of guidelines involved so you know whether the magical or fey creature is generally faster than a horse, a human, etc. and maybe a method to resolve chasing someone. A supplement to define more precise movement and travel rules could be made for those who are interested.
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Fortified Underground Defense Installatione and Gargantuan Exothermic Flying reptiles
That sounds like a cool game. .... Oh, wait.....
Anyway - I rather like the 4e idea of having rough ranges such a "Close" or "Near" or so on. But generally speaking, I agree - keep the basic combat rules largely narrative, which for ArM5 means keeping precise movement rules to supplements. For future editions (?!), an even more narrativistic rules framework for combat (e.g. forgoing Initiative) might be in order, but that's not for this thread.
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Someone asked Jonathan Tweet about this at a convention, soon after D&D 3e came out, when we were doing a Q&A together.
He confirmed that this was not the case; ArM was partly inspired by the desire to be different from AD&D, but it wasn't house rules for it.
I followed up by asking him whether D&D 3e was, in fact, his house rules for Ars Magica.
He said yes.
(He may have been joking…)
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While I earlier put some disdain on equipment lists and used Pathfinder and D&D as examples, I'd like to say I have played both games recently and enjoyed them. 
I could never imagine D&D or Pathfinder without equipment lists because so many people want them.
No rule set will please everyone. If asked what I do or don't want in a game, I'll use examples of parts of other games that I think AM don't need, and refer to some of the biggest games.
Every bit of bean counting gone away is a plus for me. I accept others love detailed equipment lists, and think it's essential we know what characters have. In something like Ars Majica, I have no problem with someone just doing a Felix the cat "I grab a rope from my pack, I grab a lantern from my pack, of course I have a mining hammer and piton" on the condition it makes sense for that character. Some people despise that and want "if it's not on your character sheet, you don't have it."
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With respect to using multiple spell mastery options during fast-casting:
I like this interpretation; it fixes a lot of issues with fast-casting. Perhaps this should be explicitly stated in the core rules, as it never occurred to our troupe (and I've seen a fair few mentions of fast-multi-casting from others on this board). We always felt the rules excerpt quoted above was simply justification for being unable to use non-standard voice and gestures.
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