Darkwing and I have been running an Ars Magica saga since the very beginning of I think 2009 - three whole years of weekly play, which has seen the years 1160 to 1218 covered. Just 58 years out of Gauntlet, the magi are now quite powerful - indeed a few dodgy assumptions about Items of Quality early on and the power level may be slightly higher than it should be. Hey, it is inevitable we make mistakes with rules from time to time, but the story has not suffered.
I think back to my first few games of Ars Magica back in the late 90's. As a new storyguide I struggled to get the combat system, and magic seemed immensely powerful in this game compared with other fantasy rpgs I was familiar with. I was unsure how to handle the sheer range of power spontaneous magic gave the characters. My experience with D&D was limited, and maxed out at third level characters, so the potential of Wish spells etc was not something I had dealt with. I ran a story about bandits in the Breckland - and the magi loved sending them running in horror, the grogs barely got a blow in 
Dungeons clearly would not work, and stories about medieval politics and power were easily resolved with a few discrete well placed spell. "High level" NPC's were a nightmare to create -- I did create some, and used others from the old Houses of Hermes book, but mystery stories were hard because well placed Intellego spells solved them, and "dungeon" type encounters were circumvented with cunning use of sponts to break doors, pass through walls, and blast enemies. I ended up telling stories about moral issues and people, forcing the characters to make difficult decisions - and think about the ramifications of their power.
A decade later I had run a lot of sagas, was comfortable with the rules and Metacreator had let me design NPC's in a fraction of the time I had by hand. More importantly, I had realised that more powerful characters face real brakes on their magical power as the xp system makes it harder and harder to advance to stratospheric levels of power. Knowing more about games like Magic the Gathering now, my players looked for clever combinations of Virtues and Flaws, and could make viable magi -- but the stories i could tell were also more interesting. Story Flaws in 5th ed gave me an idea what kind of things they wanted to feature in the game, and I could plan a rough saga arc. I had run maybe a dozen sagas set in Spring covenants, and wanted to try something different. I'd written and run Tribunal Freeforms, and the Houses of Hermes books really gave me a feel for the different House cultures.
I don't know if i will ever recapture the magic of my first faerie story, or the later idea i gathered that faeries were less twee and dangerous magical beings, but something utterly frightening and manipulative, invasions of the unconscious like UFO encounters. I think your first covenant always lives in your memory, and i don't think I will ever again have players like Pete and Polly and Kev working out the accounts down to the number of candles they burnt each season for their covenant. However by Christmas 2008 we were ready to try something new - and Tom suggested a winter covenant setting, with powerful magi, and we decided to write a new Stonehenge Tribunal from scratch. St. Peter's School York formed the basis - the magi of Alba Rosa were school teachers, and we started off with them arriving at their new home, and meeting the established magi.
58 years later, they are now the only survivors. My character Oswald has largely retired to his lab as I have run more and more - Tom will run again soon so I can play. The other magi have all trained their apprentices, and those apprentices have formed a second generation in a covenant about nine miles away in the woods. An early investment of vis in a magical flying ship really paid off in terms of the stories we could tell - they have flown all over mythic Europe (being a playtest group this is handy) and explored all kinds of odd things. From saving Dunwich and defeating Leicester's rebel army in the invasion of 1173, to diverting the Fourth Crusade back on track and saving Constantinople in 1203/4, they have met Popes and Saints, found lost magical treasures, broken the Code and faced trial, and always somehow won through.
And now the power level is ... impressive. Frightening even. Pete had originally played Lucius Delvander of Flambeau in my Antiqua Natura saga that lasted 28 years back in 1999/2000/2001 - and when the power level got to roughly 30 years out of Gauntlet he joined us. After 50 years or I allowed a story with incredible ramifications for play. The Primus of Flambeau Garus resigned -- and Lucius schemed to reunite Mithraist and Mercurian factions of the House under his Primushood. And he suceeded, and i now had a player character Primus, who was often in Iberia. Time to retire him?
We thought of it, and decided no. Janus (I'm using forum names for people who post here) plays Colt; and Colt has the Virtue Primus Lineage for House Verditius. We worked out his position in the House, and now after several sessions of politicking, his parens has replaced the unpopular Stouritis as Primus of House Verditius. It is only a matter of time till he becomes Primus. And Julia, Lloyd's character, has found the staff of Pralix, and is deeply involved in weird mysteries we can't talk about here. It looks likely she too will eventually gain such power as Primus of house Misc can grant - her and Darkwing are both originally from Cad Gadu, and re now increasingly caught up in the internal politics of that domus magna.
The characters are probably between 70 and 80 in age - I think the oldest has hit their 90's - so by Hermetic standards middle aged to mature? Our stories have shifted - Pete plays his young apprentice as much as he plays his Primus, and emailing redcap deliveries and political issues he must contend with within his House has become increasingly important. They still adventure, but most mundane threats can be met with overwleming magical force - and the creation by colt of a "flying covenant" disk has opened up new possibilities. Once again I'm having to learn how to tll completely new stories, as the Primuses of other houses begin to push their agendas, and complicated decade long schemes emerge and are vaguely grasped by the players, while the real tensions in their own Houses make political issues more and more important. Will they support the Bjornaer Harmonists or the WIlderists? Are Tremere right about Tytalus backing of the dauphin's invasion of England to dislodge King John? Can House Flambeau really be unified? And what are the Tremere really doing?
The problem with being Primus of House Flambeau is you will always attract young guns out to make a name for themselves, even by Wizard's War. And everyone wants a piece of you, and your support. Suddenly I'm running a power politics game, where the next Grand Tribunal will really count for something -- and the characters have tremendous influence. This might not be to everyone's taste -- but I have never done it before, and the challenge is interesting. I'm learning fast, and I look forward to Tom (Darkwing) taking on the Storyguides role -- but by the time this sage ends, I think we will have played a very different saga to any I have played before. I'm still learning, but it is still fun - well the players keep turning up.
The shift has been gradual - when I asked tonight what they thought of the Primus level change in how the stories were going, not one player had really noticed until I made it explicit. It developed organically out of the characters plots and ambitions - they never really noticed how the saga was changing, as the stories leading to it came from their own plans and ideas.
I don't know how it will end -- but my original plan was to tell the whole story of the characters lives, and I will end I think the saga if Tom agrees once the first few succumb to age, Twilight, or violence. They will have shaped Mythic Europe, and by 1250 the Order of Hermes. And then I may well finally retire from running Ars Magica, at least for a while, having run a second (perhaps third - the Mistridge saga was very popular though only lasted six months) long running saga, and perhaps play some other games. I've been heavily involved with Ars for well over a decade and written a lot for the line over that time - probably time to let others write more stuff, and for me to explore what other systems have to offer, and wave a fond farewell to Mythic Europe. That's still six months to a year in the future I think -- but I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the Primus level saga, and I wonder if anyone else has run a game at this sort of power level before?
So, be honest, what do you think? Is power politics in the Order of Hermes an outrageous aspiration for the latter stages of a saga, or could it be fun? Would you like to run political Ars at this level, if your characters developed that far? Would you allow a Primus in your game, knowing they will be far from the covenant and feature in only some stories? Or do you prefer the day to day life of the covenant, and the excitement and challenge of the newly gauntleted magi making their name in the world? For a fast saga (if one year game time per four sessions real time is really fast, roughly a session a season??! - I know players who have played Ars in the same covenant with their characters for nearly twenty REAL years!) I think this has potential - but I'm only just exploring it.
Anyway apologies for rambling on - hope of interest to some folks at least. And I'd love to hear your ideas and criticisms.
cj x
I think one of the great things about troupe play is that you can use that primus but switch to another character for sessions when that primus is busy.