OK, this is Tom and me talking about Ars Magica, and why people should play it. It's an experiment in seeing what we could do, rather than a professionally produced podcast, but it does seem to work. If you are really bored have a listen, and tell us what you think! Given the technology actually seems to work, we can now experiment in actually creating a podcast if that is deemed of interest.
I'm currently half way into this and it's a really good listen. We've had some lovely insights into the game, that I recognise from my own history with Ars Magica, and we've had cameos from CJ's cats and Hitler so far. It's characteristically eclectic.
I'm amazed anyone listened. Future episodes will be shorter and more structured, Tom and I were just testing if it worked really. I think it does, so we will approach ATLAS to ask for permission to do a proper podcast, and see if we can actually get Skype to work to let us record material with players and authors from all round the world. For now though, we are just plotting There will be a second episode soon, on the magic System, assuming not given a cease and desist though
We used Audacity, the free sound software. In the end I did not edit at all, but simply posted our ramblings as a single take. The microphone cost us £3 from Wilkinsons (for comparison that is less than ten cigarettes in price) and is a black desk mic made by TEXET. Because my bedroom is being refurnished, me and tom were both sitting some diatnce from the mic, and at 180 degrees to it. Hence my amnazement the sound quality was quite reasonable. I think we broke every principle i learned in my days in TV about broadcasting in terms of sound recording, but hey, we wanted to see if we could do it. Now w have moved on to finding some content to make it worth doing again
The idea should catch on. Having an entire community of people talking about their stories, their experiences, and such would be very helpful as well as a great way for the people of Ars to continue on the path of building the community stronger.
I was fascinated and astounded at the world wide diversity of folks that play the game and communicate about it here on the forum as well as the wiki. I cannot say how many times I have gotten better perspective on how to play a character, run a story, or even how to see the magic of Ars. The podcast are a great extension of this conversation.
I would like to see, and may even attempt to get our players, to have others load and link their podcasts, possibly finding other topics to add to the Ars world. Of course it all hinges I suppose on how and if the powers that be like the idea or not. But the idea is sound and the fantasy is alive.
I really enjoyed listening to this podcast. I was wondering if I'd find time to listen to it anytime soon, but I managed to squeeze it in while The Masters preempted my normal Sunday night appointment with CBS.
Far from it Janus - as noted you are a rules lawyer, as is the tendency of our group - as you say through playtesting for a decade or so - but the podcast points out you have a lot of story ideas and character driven ideas, and don't munchkin, assuming by munckining you mean making min/max powergame decisions outside of the character's own natural advantage. (In fact we explicitly say this in the podcast!)
Arcane Connection 2 featuring CJ, Darkwing and Janus is now up. It's a difficult one, because we wanted to do an introduction to the Ars Magica magic system, but are aware that the only people likely to listen to this are hard-core Ars Magica players. Still we stuck at "complete beginner" level, and hopefully our shambolic descent in to chaos may amuse some old hands too - arcaneconnection.podomatic.com/e ... 5_12-07_00
