Isn't that just spontaneous magic? Especially if you have Diedne magic for the extra oomph.
it does resemble spontaneous magic. But what I am suggesting is that spells be grouped or have outcome tables like:
death spell PeCo:
determine casting total and compare to the table below:
15: spell inflicts Light Wound (as The wound that weeps)
20: spell inflicts a Medium Wound.
25: spell inflicts a Heavy Wound.
30: spell inflicts an Incapacitating Wound
40: spell kills the target (as Clenching grasp of the crushed heart)
in the current game this would be five different spells of varying degrees of severity. I am suggesting that in a future edition of the game they be treated as the same spell cast with different degrees of force. By my suggesting it would works as follows: If I manage to cast this spell with a casting total of 45 (for an effect of "death" with +5 levels of penetration) then the targets magic resistance should be subtracted from the entire casting total to determine the effect. So that If this spell is cast on a target with a magic resistance of 15 then the final casting total becomes 30 or enough to still inflict an Incapacitating Wound through the targets parma.
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So a CrIg magus only needs 1 spell from lighting a candle to burning paris down using different levels of force?
We either restrict extremely the amount of spells magi can have or we will have magi that are A LOT more powerful than now, since their flexible spells will make them even more versatile. And they are already superheroes under the current rules....
It feels a bit like the way Supernatural abilities already tend to work - you have one ability, which you can use for different levels of effect, and your residual total adds to your penetration.
Spells are intentionally fairly specific in design - it's the trade-off between power and flexibility.
- Spells provide power
- Spontaneous Magic provides flexibility
But with this, you only have to work on arts, meaning there are fewer dials to turn. Yes, it simplifies the system, but at the cost of making it less interesting.
I'm aware that the current trends in game design is 'simplify simplify simplify!', but it is not a trend I support.
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Xavi - isn't that how Flambeau got his start, by modifying a candle lighting spell until he could do pilum of fire and then extrapolating from there?
This would effectively give everyone massive levels of "Flexible magic" and make the Gruagachan's special of "move 2 magnitudes" look mild by comparison though.
I wholeheartedly agree!
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death spell PeCo:
determine casting total and compare to the table below:
15: spell inflicts Light Wound (as The wound that weeps )
20: spell inflicts a Medium Wound.
25: spell inflicts a Heavy Wound.
30: spell inflicts an Incapacitating Wound
40: spell kills the target (as Clenching grasp of the crushed heart )
This is already sort of done with the Major Hermetic Virtue Flexible Formulaic Magic. I can see where you're going Ephemism, in that each spell is a bit TOO specific. Allowing spells to be "flexible" would make the game go faster and require PC's to learn less spells.
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I realize that just bunching lots of effects together in a single spell in the current system would make magi significantly more powerful. That is not what I want. Rather I would like system where spells are harder to learn and more meaningful to have learnt. Currently I have the luxury of not being a game designer who has to actually come up with a fully functional system but I do have ideas that about how the broadened spells could work.
The numbers necessary to cast a spell have to be less favorable, either by making DC's go up or bonuses go down.
I would like it to work in a way the preserves Flexible Formulaic Magic, for example by having spells be flexible only in the intensity of the core effect. That is no change to Duration, Range, Target or Magnitude should be possible through the (proposed) new spells.
I also envision a much greater role for spell mastery as spells are more individually powerful investing resources into mastering individual spells will become more useful and the system, in my view, should be designed around that, with spell mastery being a key feature with more options for customization.
By making spells harder to learn but more flexible in what they can do it means that inventing a new spell should not feel like a wasted season quite so often and also make it easier for players and storyguides alike to get a grasp on what their fellows a capable off.
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I think all the changes proposed in this thread are either
- so minor it wouldn't warrant a new edition (people can just add/subtract/houserule it at home) or
- so major it would need a full new game in the same setting, but under a different name.
I wonder if this is also the conclusion of the current designers at Atlas in light of the fact that we haven't seen any real progress since Dies Irae.
4 Likes
The reason why we havent seen any real progress since Dies Irae is because the Ars Magica 5th edition is officially ended. The end of 5th edition along with a blog post by Atlas games (link) discussing their current (as of 2015) thoughts about a 6th edition is the reason for the existence of this forum topic.
I agree with your observation however. In light of how popular the current edition is, it is not surprising that people would suggest only minor changes. Following up the 5th edition is going to be a challenge for the exact reason that it was so popular. If you change only little things then why even make a new edition? and if you change everything then people will hate it simply because it is so different.
This puts Atlas games and the people suggesting changes here in the unfortunate position of having to suggest major changes in order to justify a 6th edition but whenever a major change is suggested someone will invariably love the thing that is suggested to change and hate the idea of the change.
5 Likes
A more streamlined system for creating hedge magic and mysteries.
I think any successful attempt at a 6th edition would need to be approached from the perspective of creating an alternative to 5th edition instead of an improvement upon it, acknowledging that most current players will choose to stick with 5th edition and be focused instead on reaching an expanded market. The issues I have with 5th edition are mostly regarding the design philosophy, not the mechanics, and I enjoy playing despite those issues. I would also enjoy being part of making a 6th edition, from a different design point of view. largely speaking however asking current players about how to make a 6th edition is an exercise in futility because the question needs to be what would interests potential players who don't like the game the way it is.
6 Likes
I agree
The flexibility aspect can be - to a certain degree - be fixed with a Spell Mastery for this. You shoudl eb able to flex "power" instead of a Parameter though. The trick is to decide how much. Is is "only 1 level of Flex mastery, flex 1 magnitude op or down" or "flex a number of levels up to Mastery * X" where X needs to be gauged very carefully.
This is a discussion Tellus and I have had before. Using the option from integrating the Gruagachan effect, X is 2, so you need Mastery 3 to do anything at all with this. This may seem silly, but then again it signifies that Flexing is not a simpel thing, and obiovusly not something you'd bother for yoyr first or second mastery level.
Honestly, Iâd like the game system to be much simpler. The game wasnât as âcrunchyâ as it became in later editions in the first two editions.
There was some talk about doing an investigative game based on the Gumshoe rules (used in Trail of Cthulhu), specifically about House Guernicus. I wouldnât mind seeing a game using this system for the whole of Ars Magica, albeit running alongside the Classic game rather than replacing it.
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Aren't mysteries relatively straight forward?
Also I agree on hedge magic.
The mechanism as it relates to Hermetic Initiations are straightforward, yes. I would love to see how they interact with hedge traditions as well considering that Mysteries have existed way before Hermetic magic.
Hmm ... this debate is of course an unsurprising dance between viewpoints mainly heard before ...
It becomes increasingly clear that we do not need another edition of Ars Magica.
We need entirely new games, which do not try to fix the quirks while remaining Ars Magica, but which tries to be its own thing consistently while still making a competitor to Ars Magica.
Ars Magica is no longer unique in its flexible magic system. Both WorldTree and Mage have come after to model spontaneous magic and the like.
On two points, it is still hard to find competitors, though
- Which systems model characters in the long game, developing over decades?
- Which games are set in Mythic Europe, modelling the supernatural true to Medieval legend?
Since ArM was new, we have seen other games copying the flexibility of magic,
It is when we see competing systems modelling the same kind of realitiy that it is possible to identify good design features.
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Iâm not sure the logic follows here. There are plenty of games out there, and if you follow the genealogy of game design, youâll find games that do things in similar ways. That doesnât mean that games canât continue to develop and improve though. If that were the case, Ars Magica wouldnât have even reached 5th edition.
That is true, but when every debate ends in a bickering who really want to go in opposite directions, philosophically, it is time to part ways and create different games.
To the extent that we agree about the flaws of Ars Magica, the flaws are rather deep-rooted. Reducing the need for non-trivial mental arithmetics would be a good idea, but a patch on ArM would only scratch the surface. To really fix it, it should be rethought from scratch.
I am not sure what you mean by «games that do things in similar ways»!? What I like about ArM is not its ways, be they similar or different, but the fact that it does different things. I.e. it (and 5ed more than previous ed's) models long-term development in a fair and balanced way. I am not excluding the possibility that other games do it better, but those games have slipped my attention. Do you have an example at hand?
I'd much rather move back to 3ed (with all its flaws) than move forward to a new edition. A game trying to do similar things in a different way, would be inspiring, whether it be an actual improvement or not.
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