A saga book has instructions primarily of use to an SG. Legends of Hermes and Ancient Magic both have things that SGs and players can make use of. I'll grant that Legends is geared more towards SGs, but it could give players inspiration for their characters, for them to go deep on a particular theme or concept to their magus or maga.
There could be an obvious solution; putting that saga along with information useful to the players!. So both of them would have reasons tu buy it. And as i said in my previous posts, there could be a lot of useful info to show. I wouldn´t mind also some new spells though, vanilla spells, to showcase the many magic myths of Mythic Europe (more hermetic curses, for example!), and even some clarifications to existing spells, such as that of creating a tower (i don´t remember its exact name).
I wonder if there is a way to do an "open" saga book, with pieces of information that the players can read and use, followed by a "Storyguide Eyes Only" section (or two) as the last one (or two) chapters that explain how the pieces fit together.
Matt Ryan
I think the only use for such a book or article as a yardstick. I have concerns about am I doing it right all the time. I allay those concerns with, well, I'm doing a high powered, high fantasy saga, so I can discount certain factors...
I think, going with the low powered saga thread Xavi started, I wouldn't object to seeing high/low/medium powered concepts from the authors. Take a saga and run it through each of the power levels and see what comes out. Heck, I'd like to be part of that exercise.
There is something appealing about being part of a low powered saga when a magus finally learns that 7th magnitude spell...or whatever. It's one of the reasons why I'm enamored of my own Aura level mod I suggested a while back. It makes magi so powerful in magic auras, it makes them want to stay there. But they need things from outside their places of power and must occasionally venture forth. Or the Jerbiton who prefers to live in the city and has an apartment in a lacuna with a magic aura of level 0-2, which makes working magic possible, but keeps him close to the culture and bustle of the city.
There are two problems there:
- Finding a way to do it
- Persuading Atlas-Games that it's a worthwhile bet
I think 1 can be solved but that still leaves 2. Maybe the best model we have in the line so far is ToME as that's an SG-centric book, but even then that has a range of different scenarios that can be run within the framework of numerous sagas, which implies a broader appeal than a prescriptive book.
But I think the concept has legs...
Personally, for me the variation of scenarios from ToME was more a con than a pro, since sometimes I find it hard to fit into my established saga. This is different. I can see this book as something more in the line of "The Four Seasons Tetralogy meets Covenants evolved"... something a whole saga should/could be based on, removing the need to "adapt" anything. For novice (and not so novice) players/SGs, I think this could be very useful.
I built a whole saga arc around the Rise and Fall adventure in ToME with a final dramatic climax (the creation of 2 new tribunals in the OoH, Mann remaining mundanely independent from England and the hyppians becoming a major faction in house tytalus since they are fed up with the nonsense between the 2 primus). We also used other material from that book (The champions portion, the coming of the raiders and the adventure with lady martha). So it is not that difficult to use. However, I find adventure books and other adventures specially useful when you are about to start a saga, since then you can place the necessary pieces in place to make the adventures work well without them looking badly integrated when you drop them in.
The same happens with LoH. You can build whole sagas around Thomae and the island of spirits. However, they can be also dropped around. MoH has been useful here as well (Maris is a favourite character of our saga) and other books- MoH was useful to flesh covenants and tribunals easily. In general, I think that large ground shaking adventures are better when you are starting a saga, since it sets the pattern for the whole thing. Smaller adventures are better as light sessions even if it can have ramifications beyond your own control. The lady martha adventure endeared us to william marshal, for example, which helped us in the long run.
To me, the most useful books have been:
#1 House of Hermes books. - Understand the Magi and backgrounds.
#2 Tribunal books - Giving a understand of the setting to play.
#3 Culture books - A&A, the Church, City & Guilds. These help to understand the workings of the period.
What is not in here is what I consider one of the best books which is MoH. Not for the characters but for the ideas of what one could do and different ways to advance a magus.
I would like a book describing a number of detailed regiones that could be dropped into a campaign.
...now I'm tempted to think some up and submit them to Sub Rosa.
Thanks...
Yes please.
Brilliant idea. For any game system, I've often preferred these sort of things to tightly scripted adventures. Give me a place, some unique inhabitants, and some dressing and hooks, and I'll construct a story that suits my troupe and saga.
Yeah, I still don't get regios...
Back on the vanilla saga idea... write the book as an introduction to magi joining the covenant. Background, personalities, resources, area and then seed it with ideas. Triamore was excellent as an example of this.
Then publish a SG's book that details the entire campaign run and secrets to all those seed ideas. Two books that are written as one.
I'm with Xavi there.
In fact, I as the Storyguide have bought all the books, including two copies of the main book so they would stop consulting mine so much during sessions.
Perhaps Atlas might be more inclined to publish such a "STcentric" only in digital form? That would reduce costs and might make it worthwhile...
I don’t know if this would be practical for a stand-alone book, but one thing I’d like to see done in more detail is the matter of non-magi being brought into the Order. Guardians of the Forest covers includes a saga outline that involves House Bjornaer accepting shapeshifters into its ranks, and Sundered Eagle has a brief discussion of House Jerbiton accepting magical artisans. Personally I find both hooks intriguing, and if Ars Magica ever expanded on this, as a book or section of a broader work, I’d eagerly pick it up.
I'll go further. I can't possibly imagine a new player getting into Ars Magica and buying even half the books in the line. Recent supplements all seem to reference at least a half dozen to a dozen previous AM books, which is great for old veterans like me and most other regulars on the board, but you can forget about expanding the audience. Really this is something I think Atlas should be worried about.
I'll admit when I got into Ars Magica a few years ago it was rather daunting. In particular if I wanted more about the OoH I needed to pick up three books, and while the tribunal books looked neat I wasn't particularly interested in Germany or France. At the time I mentioned the lack of a good "second book" that served as an overview for the setting, and David Chart made some good criticisms of what I was suggesting, but in one form or another I think it is something that will have to be considered in the future. It is tricky - a book specifically targeting new players likely has too narrow an audience, and any sort of overview risks repeating a lot of information in other books.
A free pdf, similar to Nigrasaxa or Promises Promises for 4th edition, might be useful . . . . but budgeting free content isn't easy.
I think the key to a campaign setting book, for lack of a better term, would be to couch it within some other context. A good, if unintentional, example would be the Faction War adventure for Planescape. In addition to a lengthy adventure, the book contained detailed information on the location (which was originally produced for a sourcebook that got canceled). It's possible something similar could be done for Ars Magica - perhaps using the upcoming Grant Tribunal as an excuse to look at Hermetic culture more broadly - sort of a tribunal book with a focus on broader relations and issues rather than geography and covenants.
This one keeps rearing its head. I've noticed a lot of reprinting of rules in various books (e.g. the mystery initiation rules reprinted in Legends of Hermes, along with reference to The Mysteries), which is far preferable to 'and you will find the rules on p xx of...'
The whole line is getting quite weighty with rules. For this reason, I think a bit less rules and a bit more use of rules would be good things to see. Scenario books, tribunal books, etc. that don't add further burden to the system but do add to the world and setting.
I think a scenario book targeted at new groups wouldn't go amiss. The 'Mistridge' book from 3rd edition was a little bit this; something similar to kickstart a saga but can also be used as a sourcebook for other sagas would be quite cool. Doing up a covenant, a nearby town, a bunch of characters, a few stories and story hooks, etc. along with some guidelines on how to structure the saga for a rookie SG. By picking a fairly specific area, some research into upcoming historical events could also be included with inserts or even more fleshed out stories on how to turn those into stories for the troupe.
Such a book would have benefit to the old crowd, in much the same way that books like MoH or ToME have things that can be useful. A combination of story suggestions, characters that can be transplanted, pre-packaged historical research and everything from guidelines on how to run a vis hunt to handling regionnes. It contains stories with not just rough descriptions, but stat'd up antagonists. It contains not just a covenant library, but stories and ideas on how the covenant can grow. It covers the redcaps, how often they visit and what services they provide. It covers visiting magi, and a bit on trading books and vis. It covers the first Tribunal meeting, the agenda of the covenant and the things that happen both leading up to and following on from it.
This isn't a tribunal book; it's about a specific covenant somewhere. It could even have some notes on how to transplant the covenant into various different tribunals, and perhaps some notes on how to integrate it into the story arcs available in the different tribunal books.
Why? It's a guide. A very detailed, spelled out suggestion on how you could run an Ars Magica saga. It's not the defining 'you must do it this way' tome, but it's a starting point and helps to establish both the flavour of the game and highlights what makes Ars Magica so much different to many other RPGs.
I quite agree - which was part of the reason I was so stoked about Projects.
Indeed, the clean up of 5th was very elegant at first, but now it feels clunky with the amount of subsystems and optional or siderules.