Scribing Books

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Since the topic is still going on...

Improving Art above level 30 is extremely tedious, costly and/or risky. Timewise, it will take between 2 (best case scenario) to 4 seasons just to progress by one level, so it begs the question, is it worth it ?

Thus... Before discussing how prevalent are high level books and mage with 40+ in one Art, I like to look at the question "Why would a mage invest so much resources ?".

An Art in itself is only a tool to perform magic, thus, most mages develop an Art because they have a goal in mind that requires them to have a certain skill level, not for the sake of having the highest score (with a few exception for some Bonisagus).
So for those two to four seasons required to progress by one level, it would usually be more efficient to improve the second Art involved in the magical research, improve the laboratory, train leadership to have more than one assistant/apprentice, progress in a mystery cult to have a specific initiation and make sure that the familiar is as competent as possible.

The cost to study from vis become prohibitive at the same time as the risk for botch increases: once level 30 is reached, it costs 6 pawns, 7 dices to roll in case of 0 on the stress roll, just for an average progress of 10 to 12 points (considering an aura of 4 to 6). If the mage needs to repeat that three times to progress by one level, that's a small fortune.

For most case, once a mage reaches 20-25 he is golden for most of his research. There is only Hermetic Architecture Aura boosting that requires truly high level and for such endeavor, getting a magical focus in Aura manipulation would be worth a lot more than a couple extra levels. Look at Magi of Hermes to have example of mages designed with a goal or an interest in mind that is not just "achieving the highest art level possible".

That's one plausible coherent explanation that can be served to players.

Now, for the mechanical / meta-game explanation I found:

  • The higher the quality of books, the higher the level of Summae, the more abundant Tractatus of good quality are, the less relevant young mages (= PCs) are: with such resources at disposal, the overall average power level of mages is significantly higher. Thus most young mages should focus on catching up with the middle of the pack if they want to have any meaningful impact, otherwise they will be out-Certamen, out-spelled, out-skilled by all but the youngest mages. It is still the case in the current setting, but the step between "average power" and young mage is lower, thus a mage does not need to dedicate so much time to become relevant.
    It is like you just graduated with a master, but because everybody has at least one (if not more) PhD, if not several post-docs, nobody takes you seriously.
  • by design, the Order in the setting is flawed. It is a feature, not a bug. It gives so much opportunities for players to make a difference. How is it possible that the "guild" that gathers arguably the brightest minds of Europe, with resources that any kings would envy, plus powers that can only be matched by God if he decides to intervene is not better organised ? Why is there not a few academies where teaching of future apprentices is not handled by skilled teachers (Improved Theban Tribunal)? Why is there no better spread of knowledge in the Order (ie: collection of best tractati, copies of Primer Q21L6 in each Tribunal,...), etc. The metagame answer is simple: to leave something for the players to do!

While one can consider that overtime, better tractatus should be available on any topics, one should also consider how it would impact the whole background. And usually, it means it is a lot more difficult to stand out when the average level is higher. And as player, I want that my PC becomes relevant sooner than later, even if it is only in his small niche specialties. More powerful mages means less area unexplored, less original spells to invent, less opportunity to be original... Do you really want to say to your players that spend several seasons or years working on a nice project: "Decent job, but magus Emeritus did it fifty years ago with additional bells and whistles, you get a B-"...

So besides some very academic-oriented mages of the Bonisagus persuasion and a few other specific cases, my take is that although possible, the cost/benefit of getting truly high Art becomes unacceptable for most mages past a certain level.

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82

That's only two out of a range of options. If you make vis scarce, reader hospitality affordable, and have a couple of old covenants making a profit on reader's access, there may be almost nothing to buy and yet very limited market to sell as you compete with library access.

Even without reader hospitality, one may be in the situation that the Autumn covenants have the books they need and the Spring covenant cannot afford it. Nobody sells and nobody buys.

If you scrap canon cow and calf, or within canon rule that it is unenforceable, you have yet another curb on trade. The PCs may be able to sell one copy dearly, but then they compete with the buyer for additional sales.

There is also the possibility that low-end books are plentiful and cheap, but mid- and high-end are scarce. The PCs may be able to charge a premium for high-end books, but it is limited. A high-end book is more valuable than medium quality, but not infinitely so.

Yet, @Ezechiel3571 raised the most important point so far. Why on Earth would a magus care? Do you really want to spend your life reading books to perfect your arts? Or write for others to perfect theirs? Will you not be happior if you use your magic to make life comfortable? If magi are like normal people, maybe 12 out of the 1200 magi actually take part in this rat race. That's not a big market for books whichever way your turn it.

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83

Fundamentally the problem with abstraction is that it is abstract. I once had a player (who was notorious for rolling repeated ones, even when closely observed) Study an art from Vis that he began with a score of about 8 and rolled 10 1's and then a seven. For 7168 xp, giving him a new score of 119 in the art. Yes it is absurdly rare under abstract calculations, but it also completely throws off a large number of premises- if it happens once and the person who it happens to is a poor author- lets say Com 0, and incomprehensible, they can still write a level 59 summae, admittedly with a quality of 6 which must be halved after any bonuses for good student or the like, but they can also write a SQ:12 (and again halved source total) at level 53.
A later magus who is then a professional writer and has presumably exhausted regular books up to level 20 with better source qualities can then read this book for multiple seasons. If they have book learner and study bonus the book is effectively SQ:17, or if it was bound with resonant materials and clarified it could well be effective SQ:20 before halving, allowing them to write a tractatus every couple of years for a while and eventually begin writing their own, much higher SQ book. Even if they don't manage to make it to level 56 slogging through this source, they will make the journey easier for the next mage with a fairly high level summae which is much easier to read.
Now admittedly such an accomplishment in the past becomes a setting feature rather than simply an assumption about what could have or should have happened, but the point here is that in addition to what should be a slowly climbing level of books there are also such freak occurrences which are going to impact the development of the arts.

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84

I am of the view that quite a few senior magi would want to get to a score of 40, for a whole host of reasons: writing a Summa, researching epic spells, showing off, political clout, mastering Initiation magics...

I take Ezechiel's point about other ways to improve. But I imagine that these people have already pursued the other aims earlier in life. A mage with an Affinity for an Art will find it as easy to raise to 40 as they will find it to raise any other art to 27.

If there are 1000 magi in the Order, it seems sensible to me that there will be 1-3% of them pursuing this goal who have already got a long way towards it. That's the "one or two dozen" I mentioned above.

Adventure seems unreliable to me. Exposure is reliable, but small, and Teaching is unavailable. So it's Tractatus or Vis.

I'm recapping Ezechiel's sums here, but let's assume a mage with an Art of 31, who wants to get to 40 and has run out of books. We'll let them have an Affinity, and an Aura of 5. So if they average a 6 on the Stress Die, they get 17 EPs per season. That still means about 21 seasons, burning 7 or 8 Pawns each time. (We'll also let them have plenty of Vis, but if this is taking place over ten years, it's not a ridiculous sum.) So they roll a zero 2-3 times in the process, with a roughly half chance of a botch when they do. So maybe one botch in the entire process? There are botches you walk away from (one botch doesn't even cause Twilight, but might cost you two seasons to build a new lab), and I think the Gold Familiar Bond can drop the risk further.

Huh. It's very expensive, but not as dangerous as I thought. I have to retract somewhat. Tractatus are still appealing, but if you are a bit of a risk-taker, Vis can be an alternative.

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... which is about one magus per art. If we assume that magi have an Hermetic life of about a century, only a few will actually be close to 40, more will be around 30 hoping to get to 40 in fifty years. Some of them may well give up or even perish before they reach their goal.

Studying from vis is not a lab activity, so you needn't risk your lab. Furthermore, you may find the possibility to study in a stronger aura away from home, which increases the chance of finding aura 5 and higher. OTOH some troupes house rule that lab safety applies to vis studies too, in spite of its not being a lab activity.

It is instructive to read the Durenmar chapter [GoF] and their qualities at 2+d10. Half the time, you are left to study at Q7 or less. That's an awful lot of low-quality books.

BTW 40 with affinity corresponds to 33 without.

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86

Also consider a magus with an art of 40 who has decided to author a book (and is thus presumably a god author, though whatever combination of traits) will also be able to author 8 tractatus on the same art- if we assume a SQ of 15 that would be level 20 (210 xp) plus 120 xp from tractatus before going to another source- already level 25. Level 40 is 820 xp. which is 490 xp away. If they can get quality 15 tractatus all the way until 14 it will take 33 seasons of reading- just over 8 years.
Once you break 40 however then you are writing 'exceptional books' which covenants has all the way up to level 24 (requires art of 48), so it seems to me that the real struggle to reach goal is going to be 50, allowing a magus to author he nearly mythical level 25 summae.

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I'm not sure I have a lot to add except that I think @Ezechiel3571 and @loke are on the path that feels right to me. My experience with academics makes me feel that they are no more driven to push themselves than anyone else. Combine that with the fact that magi are not selected for ambition and drive but merely by the random nature of The Gift and I see an Order with many magical slackers who aren't optimized, aren't that motivated to become a master of one art, and aren't that interested in either reading or writing tractatus.

Whether this is a storytelling feature so that PC magi can be properly impactful or a game simulationist failure because it is hard to create rules that reward having your character relax and rest on their laurels is up to everyone to decide on their own.

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That depends on whether you want to play a simulation or tell a story. I have met players of both kinds. If you are a simulationist player, it is a failure, if you are storyteller, it is a feature. Nobody cares to tell (or listen to) the story of John Average. We tell stories about the people who stick out, and the PCs are the lead characters of the story and have to be optimised for a lead role.

But Ars Magica is intended as a narrative game, so it is the simulationists who should be looking for a different game (whether another game or a customised one).

What remains the flaw, which is peculiar to Ars Magica, is that players get to minmax the support cast as well, who were never intended as main characters and who are barely played. The liberty to design another grog scribe, or an autocrat to manage an unlimited corps of scribes, is part of the reason why books feel like a trivial cost.

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I would disagree in that I think people are interested in stories about people who are mechanically average but who still manage to step up and do something. But that's neither here not there.

I'd go even farther on this. The feeling I get on this forum is that people want to push the entire order in that direction. Not only designing grog scribes and the like but making the assumption that the entire order should be assumed to be optimized and efficient.

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While I agree, people often work jobs they are not happy with. People put up with a LOT of hardship in order to get by. If a copyist is doing great in a university town, he's not going to take a job at a covenant. If he's struggling? That's another story.

It's established already that covenants generally don't get the cream of the crop in terms of covenfolk. Creepy wizards are creepy and generally only the desperate sign up for it. An established covenant can basically just train up their own scribes over time.

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".. which is about one magus per art. If we assume that magi have an Hermetic life of about a century, only a few will actually be close to 40, more will be around 30 hoping to get to 40 in fifty years. Some of them may well give up or even perish before they reach their goal."

I think we're measuring different things. I think you're counting the magi who have very high Art scores, so they can write a top notch Summa. I'm trying to count the magi running around begging for Tractatus (which I accept isn't even all of those trying to push their favourite Arts very high).

You are right that you don't need to risk your lab to study vis, but my main point was that botches aren't necessarily disasters, unless you roll lots of zeroes. (I think we agree on that?) And you're quite right about the affinity numbers.

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I don't expect optimisation across the board. I don't expect a bunch of Q14 Tractatus because a PC can min-max a com +5 good teacher. I do expect the world to work as it does for the PCs, and NPCs to likely behave in a way similar to the PCs when looking at reasonable options. Also, we are looking at centuries of the order. All we need is one Brandon Sanderson, Terry Pratchett, Robert Howard, David Eddings kind of author each generation, and we have a flood of tractatii.

Even without the prolific author, as mentioned by others, if there aren't many tractatus, the guy with Com +2, makes a few Q8 tractatii, and maybe even the Com+1 guy makes the Q7. You'd imagine amongst the 1000 or so magi of the order, a good 200+ magi with a com+1 or better. Even if they average 1 tractatus each, 200 Tractatii are made each generation.

The order also has enemies and due to the gift, nearly everyone hates magicians. Even without the gift, the fear a normal person has of someone who can kill them, turn them in to a chicken, control their mind, etc with a few words and a gesture is strong.

All it takes is a few people with a strong devotion to keeping the order strong, who focuses their energies on either becoming good authors, sponsoring good authors, making libraries, etc. An order with comprehensive summaes and tractatii are likely to be 10 XP a year better, if not more. The sheer power that represents in any conflict is immense. The person who wants the order strong does this.

I personally think a world with lots of books makes sense. I also am a big fan of giving the PCs what they want, within reason. I'm not going to give the perfect summae group. No level 12 Q 20 & Level 17 Q15 & Level 20 Q13, but a L15 Q15 summae in their preferred technique or form and reasonably cheap access to Q8 tractatus, why not. If you have a PC saying, there's nothing I really want to study, I guess I'll use that book because it's there, that's an underwhelming PC experience.

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93

Whatever I count, I used your figures: 1-3% of the Order or one or two dozen at a time, which is just one magus per art. OK, if you say that these desperate readers do not necessarily specialise in a single art, there may be couple of readers for the same tractatus, but it is still a small readership.

We absolutely agree on the vis studies, but I do not think that's necessarily very important. First and foremost, it is expensive. The magus heading for 40 in an art will quickly want to spend 20 pawns/year in a single art. Not only is that a vis rich saga, but it may be difficult to get the right art too. And if this is affordable, what can other magus do who spend their share on their talisman or Hermetic services?

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I think this is inherently a slant towards optimization. Even without purely min/max behavior players tend to make efficient characters. Then, in game, we are rewarded mechanically for making efficient choices. Which then leads to the storyguide needing to design NPCs that logically fit with these reasonably efficient characters.

This might be the fundamental difference and it is a big one. I don't see the Order as a whole working like that. My view is that The Order spread because it protected magi from other magi due to Parma plus a structure for handling disputes. Once a few magi tolerate each other a covenant already has the power to deal with local mundane threats. So everything settles down into a better version of the pre-Order status quo of magi remaining as aloof from society as possible (for the most part). After the Duresca scrolls, the Tremere sundering, the Corruption/Betrayal in Tytalus, the Schism war, the indifference of at least portions of Merinita and Criamon, and the friction perceived by at least some elements of Ex Misc. and Bjornaer I don't see a lot of magi outside of Tremere who really want a strong Order.

As I've said before some of this is probably because I'm still thinking in early 1st/2nd edition terms and fluff text even though I have all of the 5e books (thanks BoH for filling in the gaps). When you say you are a big fan of giving the PCs what they want my thought is that I don't want an Order where advancing the arts is purely a matter of reading what others have written endlessly. I want a system where at some point a mage must do independent research to push the boundary of their Arts.

LOL! I wouldn't want that all the time but I actually find working within restrictions a great thing. I want to play in a saga where I might have to have my character make a choice between studying from vis, reading a book that will help him but is sort of just there, or doing something else such as going on an unplayed "adventure" where you spend a season to find and get the book that they would rather have.

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Canonically, NPCs generally do not behave like any PCs I have seen at the table.

The stereotopical, canon Jerbiton is supposed to spend most of their time appreciating, and possibly making, beautiful things and cultivating mundane relations, neither of which show a lot in terms of stats.

Similarly, Tremere are supposed to spend their time building their organisation, which is more important than individidual ability.

Tytalus are supposed to enjoy cabals, intrigues, and conflict for the sake of it, most of the time yielding 4xp practice at best.

Bonisagus are supposed to enjoy magical invention, and one might have thought that high arts would be a prerequisite, but when you work the numbers, you find that the only really important stat for original research is Magic Theory 11, and even for spell invention you get more from lab improvements, familiars, and apprentices than trying to get your arts to 40.

Verditius are supposed to enjoy craft and enchantment, at first not very different from a Bonisagus spell inventor, but then they are supposed to enjoy the luxurious lifestyle it affords.

Canonically, magi can afford ten days out of a season to go to church (say). In an emergency, these days are available to resolve it, but players have a tendency to toil as a matter of routine, to get the most out of it.

Sorry, I think the canon stereotypes are more plausible as real people than the typical PC. And at the end of the day, there is no reason to expect NPCs to behave like PCs, because players live an abstraction and optimise like a machine. Real magi live in a real world, with real experience, real pleasure, and real pain. Game designer seems to do a better job of describing real people.

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BTW, I just saw your post relating the Order to the British Empire. I've always thought of the order as more of a Westphalian system set within a world that has two major powers (mundane nobility and the Church) that should not be provoked.

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I don't think magi in general are any more ambitious or driven to write books than anyone else. at the same time some of them are. There are going to be those who see their own form of immortality in the books they write.

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