Jonathan, you misunderstand me. I like all the Houses. I just prefer a previous version of a particular House.
To be honest and not selfish, the single biggest most important improvement that Atlas could make is to totally change the layout. As it is, the color is dreadful and the art is... not terrible, but not very good either. Disney critters on page 5. And that three column format is a headache. Every following book of the line was much better. two-column format, black and white, much easier on the eyes.
Then there is the giant wall of complexity. Crunchy bits are a good thing, it is part of the charm of the game. It is not that. It is where the wall is located, which is right up front. For a lot of games, the wall is towards the middle. It is easy to get up and running and playing, and then you can get tricky. With Ars Magica, the wall is up front in your face.
For example, I am in a local gaming group, and I tried to get some interest in Ars going. I presented that very unattractive ArM5 book, and it confuses the casual reader. I realized it would be much easier to teach them 4th edition, then upgrade. (On a side note, I recently scored a PDF copy of ArM2. Never played it, but it looks fun and easy).
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I'd like to keep the d10 mechanic, but with some mild tweaking. My current house rule, undergoing testing with my group, is that the die always gives a result of 0 - 9. On a simple roll, you get exactly what it says on the die. 0 is 0, 9 is 9. As a stress die, 0 is a potential botch, and 9s explode. This somewhat allows the lucky results possible with the current doubling system, while allowing for all possible numbers (none are skipped, making creation of charts easier) and avoiding the potential gamebreaker of a great roll while studying from vis. Perhaps actual professional game writers can improve on this, but so far the system has worked fairly well as long as I remember to mentally edit any charts that use a stress die in the current system. (Mostly aging and experimentation.)
(I think the current record for rolling consecutive 2s reported here is 11? If studying from vis, that gives the magae (aura) + (2^11 x n) xp, where n is the first number other than 2 rolled, stopping the madness. Or 2048 x n + aura. Could easily give more than 10k xp in an Art, all at once, a score over 140. Just imagine the book that character would write...)
Also, I'd like an online repository of all the rules gathered together, combined into a single coherent whole, and updated with the current errata. No fluff, no setting, just the basic rules all in one place. I'd happily subscribe to a higher Patreon tier to get access to such a compendium, instead of having to refer to 4+ books to get all the details on a topic. I've seen an online index for all the book rules that referred to at least 9 different titles. That seems ... high. Also, unusable. Being able to look up some obscure case that I dimly remember simply by looking up the base topic would be an amazing improvement for me. (Where were the rules for damaged or partial books, again? Ancient Magic would not have been in my first 3 guesses.) Not a request for the base rules to be open or licensed like the SRDs of d20 derived games, simply a request for all the mechanics to be gathered in one, simple, searchable location at a reasonable price.
Updates to some of the earliest Tribunal books would likewise be appreciated. Ars no longer sees demons under every rock and every member of the clergy a potential infernalist, and the quality of the editing and layout has only improved. I physically own a copy of Iberia, and it was of little help to me when my players made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. A new version would be great.
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Apart from Ars Magica I also play GURPS, which is great for micro-managment of every second in combat, be it gunplay or martial arts. It has immense detail, tacitcal choices etc. But it takes forever
I don't want that kind of detial for Ars Magica, but I'd like more creativity and fexibility, and if I've read your post correctly @Timothy_Ferguson , that is what you're also missing?
Maybe combat should be more about choosing an "approach" each round: Offensive, Defensive, Mobile, Evasive, Pacifying, Deceptive etc. and this is what you do and how you do it. This should fit with then theme and style of the character, be it bull-whip guy, nimble knife-thrower, or tin-can knights. I've been toying with a system like that for years, on and off since the original idea. I have something that may be usable, in a home-brew system which aims to be simple and generic.
The results depend on the approach taken by the opposition, e.g if both are Defensive they circle around each other and strike no serious blows, and Offensive versus Mobile means a chase.
Naturally skill and equipment also plays a part, but combats should be less random, so the die rolls should mean less. I know that the higher Abilities gte and the more bonus you can gather, the less impact the dice have. But there are also still Botches and consequetive 1s.
It could give less crunchy and more colourful and narrative combats.
Even though ArM combat mechanics are cleaned up over time, it still "suffers" from the original concepts from 1987 with how things were, and for many games still are now.
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I first lay my eyes on 2nd ed back around 1990, but I never got to actually play until 97 or 98, and that was 4th ed.
One of the things I liked during my many years of 4th ed gaming, was the high detail of the books, using WGRE with Physcial Quality, damage to books, glosses, coloured inks.
I have now completely flipped, and long for the "single digit library" of 2nd ed, where libraries had a rating for each Art or Ability. Now, back them it was full-level advancement, none of that tracking os loose exp. But I don't want precisely like 2nd ed, because I want to count every exp, otherwise Exposure and Story Exp can't be used.
But IIRC the alternative system for libraries described in TME: Magic as Technology didn't satisfy me.
What I want is a system, where magi can write books (non-specific types, just "books) to add to a library's rating - if they are good enough. As it is now, even the worst author can write a tractatus which is better than nothing, although some of them barely are.
And I'd want to change the "author virtues", especially Good Teacher, to be split up into some for writing and some for training, like they used to be.
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I especially like your ideas for virtue & flaw selection for magi. I know it takes some of the freedom out of it, to not just allow 10 small bonus viretues to boost abilities or characteristics, or whatever one would want. But I don't think that matters, since magi may be taught somewhat in the same way, and some categories of both V&Fs should be had. It sums up character quite well with one selection in each category. Perhaps allow a "free choice" for virtues , to select more of one kind of virtue, or to de-select one kind of flaw?
I like it how you can only have one Major Hermetic Virtue, because it defines you as a magus, there are just too few.
And I'd like all of them to exist in Minor versions, being more limited.
What is all Hermetic Virtues were "aspected" we could call it? Tied to a theme, like Focus?
For ease the Major could be made into encompassing an entire Form (where it now specifically is less than an entire Art), or spread out over several Forms, and the Minor version affects a subset of this.
E.g. a combat magus, let's say a School of Apromor Flambeau has as his single Major Hermetic Virtue Major Magical Focus: Damage Beings and Solids (so Perdo and any creature or firm physical object of the Forms: Corpus, Animal, Terram, Herbam, and Aquam for ice, not liquids or air or fire!).
He also has Minor Flexible Magic: Damage Living beings, allowing to change parameters on spells affecting humanoids or animals.
I dislike virtues which are purely for exp boosting. While ever so useful to rack up levels, I find them significantly less interesting compared to the ones you can use actively. One of such is Secondary Insight, which is why I feel there are preciously few Major Hermetic Virtues.
However Indepedent Study is a favourite of mine, since it makes Practive worthwhile (see later, about Mastery) and it lures the magus out of the lab and library because adventure can pay off, study-wise.
While I don't find Book LEarner interesting, it may be a necessary evil.
I absolutley love Spell Mastery, and that is why I very often choose Flawless Magic. It is powerful, too powerful actually, plus I only care for one part of it really. I don't mind not getting automatic Mastery of all spells, some spells I can't find anything useful to select. Sure, Imperturbable is also nice, or Quiet, but often it makes little difference.
But I really, really like the "quick mastery" effect of Flawless Magic - having Mastery Practive exp doubled is über-awesome. I'd like to have that effect only, but it's still way more than a Minor Hermetic Virtue should cover. Sure, you could nerf it down to +50% like affinities. But I'd rather have Quick Mastery be "aspected" like mentioned above.
Again, the Apromor Flambeau could have Quick Mastery: Damage Living beings, allowing faster mastery on spells affecting humanoids or animals.
Quick Mastery should also have the effect, that when inventing spells, even from text or taught, the Exposure granted is actually 5 exp if put into Mastery, but the usual 2 if put into Arts or Abilities. If you invent several spells in a season only one can be thus Mastered.
Spells known at Gauntlet are mostly taught, and most likely several were taught per season. The Exposure for this may have been put into Mastery on one each season of teaching. But how many seasons was the magus taught? In each season the 2 Exposure exp culd have counted as 5 exp for mastery I think it works out fine to just use exp from the normal allotment to buy Mastery at ½ price. That also takes into account that the Quick Mastery apprentice studied books or practiced mastery during his apprenticeship.
As for Spell Masteries per se, I really like that most if not all of the Hermetic Virtues allowing special stuff (like Flexible) exist as Masteries, for an even more limited scope than as Minor Virtues. In the previous example of the Apromor-Flambeau, if he does not have the Minor Flexible Magic, he may learn Flexible Mastery for specific spells he want to be able top do this with. Flexible Mastery is mentioned as an option for Integrating Gruagach magic in HMRE IIRC.
Otherwise I like Masteries to either a) give a an option not otherwise possible, like Fast-Cast or b) give a bonus to a specific thing based on Mastery Level, like Penetration. Some of the current Masteries, Precise or Imperturbable, I think, just add 1 but you can select it several times - I don't like that.
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I hear you. I have a dislike of the current House Criamon, I would never dram of playing one, and they feature very rarely as NPCs in my sagas.
I liked them in 4th ed, my first magus character ever was of that house, and was played for years. It was chosen based solely on the vague 2nd ed descrption of them as foduces on Mentem. As I read Houses of Hermes (or was it Order of Hermes? It was the one for 4th ed) their wierd ways and goals of seeking the Enigma was good fun.
But the way they in 5th ed are so completely well-defined, it doesn't work for me. The quality of the writing and research is good I'm sure. Their Paths are interesting, House structure as well. But too rigid and well-defined wierd is a deal breaker for me.
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Unpopular opinion. I feel that there is still some room for improving 5th edition. These are the books that I would really like to see:
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One book focusing in alternate rules, that could cover all the thing that people is suggesting for the 6th edition. You can even propose some of them as the new rules default for following products.
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Books for remaining tribunals, including Iberia and Norvgorod.
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More stories. I cannot get enough. I feel that there is room for some additional stories about conflict inside the order, about conflic/contact/negotiation/absorption of other magic traditions that have been already published, and probably many others.
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I also like characters like the ones in Magi of Hermes, but the forums are so rich in those, that this is less attractive. Although the work to create antagonists from non hermetic traditions is really taxing and the reason why I don’t really use them even if they are presented as hooks in some other sourcebooks.
Probably this is less sustainable economically than a 6th edition.
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More tribunal books would be great. I absolutely love the tribunal books. Great research, great context, great, detailed story fodder. Love all the covenants, the variances in interpretation of Hermetic code. I'd support a Kickstarter for more tribunal books immediately. Iberia would be amazing I'd play that in a second
The problem with a true 6th edition is it would have to compete with the extremely complete 5th edition. I feel like it might be more viable to leverage the IP in other ways...a PBTA based on it, a fate game...get people into the setting then be like "oh so you thought that was cool"
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My concern is that the combat, for all its carry on, and the vast amount of time sunk into statting monsters, is a mingame that distracts from the core game. It's lockpicking in Skyrim, if you will.
The core combat mechanic in the game is "Magus casts spell - Monster attacks party - Repeat". All of the carrying on with the Init/Att/Def/Dmg/Soak for the monsters and companions is actually not really interesting, its just a way to slow that down and make everyone feel like they are doing something.
Did you ever play Champions? It was one of the early superhero games. Basically it didn't care if you had a rifle, a psionic blast power, or an enchanted boomerang. The question was "Is it ranged or not? Does it do lethal or subduing damage?" and that's it. Similarly, I don't actually care, mechanically, if you have a sword, a whip, a knife, or a claw. I want to know if its ranged, and if its better in some fundamental sense that what the other person has.
Remember the main game I played other than Ars is Amber. In it, your ability to hurt people is one score (Warfare) and it's diceless. If you go in with the better Warfare, then you are likely to win, unless people roleplay a different outcome. Then you get on with telling the story about the consequences. (There is a No Instant Death rule, btw)
In Ars, the gap between initiating combat and consequences is a minigame about resource expenditure, like D&D, except the resources you have are easier to come by than heal potions and magic arrows (fatigue) or far harder (vis, lives of grogs).
Is this, however, at its core, an interesting minigame? I'm pretty sure it isn't. I'm pretty sure we can do better.
We have had a go at various ideas over time. Radically simplifying combat is one. Replacing combat skills with arts and forms is another. Basically thought I think people will just handwave things and use the Take 6 rule to stop combat being a boring slog that wastes the players' precious storytelling time.
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I think there is a possibility to make the combat both more detailed and more streamlined. What it needs are more options for what you want to do in combat (called shots, more variety in what weapons do, etc.) and less overly complicated mechanics to keep track of to do the exact same thing over and over. I expect that issue alone could be its own discussion thread. Honestly I think there are a lot of things which could be improved in a 6th edition, and would probably want a whole sourcebook on alternate histories the game could be played in instead of just confining the game to our own history with varying degrees of historical realism.
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Maybe create a wiki, with a subpage for each major topic, so people can put their notes for changes etc in them?
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If the community gets big enough, it can support that.
Right now, the community is not big enough to support simple forks like Magonomia, and it covers the costs of the fanzines and podcasts either barely or through the financial aid of a handful of players.
A solid core game gives you the money to run kickstarters and high quality fan projects about tangential settings.
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I would change the labor point system. It feels clunky and doesn't tie into the magic system, which is kind of the star of the show. Magic items don't really tie into labor points, or vice versa. Also streamline it enough to tie into larger scale operations, like covenant income sources.
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Streamline magic systems. Each Non Hermetic magic system seems to far divorced from the core mechanics. I like that they can do non-hermetic things. But if they can do hermetic things, the levels should be similar. Magic systems should also all follow the same advancement schemes.
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Book structure: I'd like if all the books followed a structure so you don't have to dig around for things. Have all the crunchy history in one section, The hermetic history in the next, then put a section that is broken into, New Virtues, New Flaws, New Spells, New NPCs, New Monsters, etc. So you don't have to dig around a book to find a mechanic. You always know it's in one section.
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Book Writing: I feel this is too tied into essential nature. Either you are born with the right virtues and attributes or you are not. I think book writing should be tied to teaching and scribe skills, so you can learn to be a good writer if you were not blessed with a high com and good teacher.
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A thought on revising spell guidelines: do it with a clear view to giving GMs and players a steer about how much they can expect a single spell to accomplish, in terms of damage, combat buffs, value of goods created, etc. GMs can rule that a spell is particularly effective in a given context to grant additional bonuses, but giving a baseline can only help. As in existing rules, particular forms can be more suited to particular tasks (eg fire spells tend to do more damage).
(I'm thinking of something similar to Laboratories guidelines for magic items: level 20 spell = 1 point of General Quality. Except I suppose the spell guidelines should generally be based on the base effect level, not the overall spell level.)
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I have been calling for a fifth edition revised for many years now. 
Better organization, better harmonization. And I'll say it again, the bad art and the red ink is distracting. The way some of the insert boxes are placed disrupts the flow of understanding. And the three column format is maddening!
As for actual changes, I would keep them minor. CharGen can be easily simplified while retaining the option to get complex and detailed.
How? Well, pay me and I will write it 
Seriously though. Look at Fourth edition. Each House had a suggested set of starting scores and "x" amount of points to build from there. You don't need to build from childhood forward. Figure out the age you are when you enter the game, and work backwards from there.
A simplified summary for CharGen, in an insert box with a GRAY background (no red ink).
This is what I meant earlier about where to place the "wall of complexity". Every game has one. It is part of what makes gaming fun. But, to further the metaphor, a new player needs a bit more of a run up and perhaps a springboard.
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I think a common problem with RPG books is they make things TOO well defined when writing supplements. I want more varieties - here's three takes on Criamon! Here's three takes on Flambeaux! And so on. While having a codified these are the Bonisagus rules doesn't technically limit the options on how my own Bonisagus house works... it really does mean that I can't put my spin on the Bonisagus and how they work, because there's a canon.
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If I was rebuilding CharGen, I'd take the idea of assigned flaws and virtues (also get rid of direct xp virtues).
Everyone gets:
- 1 hermetic focus(minor equivalent)
- 1 hermetic virtue
- 1 general virtue
- 1 hermetic flaw
- 1 general flaw
- 1 story flaw
Then do some math to make the virtues and flaws all equivalent rather than minor/major.
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I dig what you are saying. I would take a different approach though. Scale back Virtue & Flaw rules ti be more like 4th edition. A variable point value, with the points +/- written next to the virtue/flaw. That way you can tell at a glance if things balance or not, much easier to calibrate a balance, and for a new player it is just more intuitive. The whole Major/Minor thing bogs things down. It is a good idea and is nice and crunchy. But it is too much crunch too soon. Just three categories: Hermetic, Social Status, and General. No rules for this many that and so many of these. Category minimums/maximums are a good idea, but it should be an option. Info-dumping obscure protocols is discouraging and frustrating to a new player.
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