What would you like more examples of?

People often ask on this forum for help with a certain plot element they want to use, or particular virtues that they just can't get their head around. There's also a lot of requests for stats of magi or creatures or covenants...or just about anything that can have have in-game statistics.

In that spirit, and given the existence of fanzines and websites for Ars that probably want inspiration for more content, what would you like? Is there anything which would make certain parts of the game more usable?

(fine print: I may well end up stealing a juicy topic for this November's post-a-day if I find a really inspiring one, otherwise you get "thirty examples of things I might use in my next game")

1 Like

A couple of things I have found myself wishing for:

Ideas for Companions - including their reasons for putting up with the magi.
More examples of Magical Animal Companions and familiars.
Some more Major General Flaws that do not leave the character a cripple that is completely unable to do a great many things.

4 Likes
  • Beings in general but particularly Airy Spirits, they're supposedly all over the place and I think can make a really interesting piece of the game world.
  • Supernatural effects of beings of (realm), pretty much any realm, deciding on and creating their powers is often one of the slowest parts of making them for me so more pre-designed powers would be helpful.
  • Magi of an age to have taken an apprentice that we can use for our parens.
  • Companion ideas is a good idea.
3 Likes

For this are you more interested in a descriptive write-up (for use with normal character creation) or full characters for use with "by season"? The first would be more generally useful to most games.

I could use a few (dozens of) Jinn if you're offering?

Full-ish characters for use with apprentices.

EDIT: also useful for a lot of games what with antagonists or mentors and the like.

On this note, potential apprentices - plot hooks for finding gifted children to insert into your saga (maybe with a few "false alarms" thrown in where it turns out to be a child with supernatural powers but not the gift).

Something useful and related that I've never thought to compile until now would be a summary of canon magi above a certain age broken down by house and tribunal, which you could pluck a parens from (maybe even make it a rollable table?). A fun an relatively easy way to tie your new character into the world a bit more, assuming you have the tribunal books available.

3 Likes

Also stealing ideas for the podcast...

2 Likes

I like sahir, but to actually run a sahir-based game would require Jinn for each starting sahir and more they could learn to someone as their skill in Sihr improves. Actually, if I was playing a Hermetic Sahir in a game full of Ex Miscellanea, I'd probably try to summon a new Jinn each year as they can teach an Art as well as Sihr to Hermetic Sahir.

1 Like

TBF, I was thinking of doing the gifted Children list for November

3 Likes

Exactly why I'd love for someone else to make a few dozen of them - especially faerie Jinn, which I find harder to create than the more elemental Jinn of the Magic realm.

1 Like

I think that one thing that is missing is a better introduction for people running their first saga.

The game is not just a series of linear rooms in a dungeon with well known power levels, which lends itself to an easier mechanical description of how and what to prepare.

How to prepare the campaign, plot arcs, other factions (antagonistic, allied, neutral), what kind of ressources to give, how to prepare adventures as the storyteller (in particular accounting for the flexibility of mages), how to keep the background world lively and dynamic, how to simply model the machinations and actions of the rest of the OoH, as all the members would have as much agency/drive as the player characters.

At least for me, this was the biggest set of hurdles to start my saga.

5 Likes

Definitely, more "how to" for storyguides is needed. To a new prospective player or GM, simply figuring out how to go about starting to build a saga can seem a daunting task. IMO that may be a barrier that has contributed to keeping the ArM community of actual players small over the years.

Add to that more details on how to build creatures in ways that line up reasonably with existing game mechanics and that might be enough to actually sell me on a mythic New Edition if it were ever to happen.

@Jank, you should IMO cross-post your paragraph I quoted above to the "rules that should be core" thread. How to Story Guide definitely belongs in the core rulebook.

2 Likes

I would love to compare notes with you when you start on this, I'm curious how your methods of creatubg Gifted Children would different than mine.

1 Like

Maybe. I have given thoughts to that threat, but since my views might be unorthodox, I am still waiting a bit and thinking things over before I make a big post.

1 Like

More examples (the only ones) for Animae Magic especially Faerie daimon.

2 Likes

Based on a thread long, long ago, a thorough example of a group ritual casting of Aegis of the Hearth, including realm interactions vis-a-vis the Penetration of the casting, Mastery Abilities, Penetration Specializations, etcetera.

The core rules need example(s) of how damaging spells actually work, for both the likes of Pilum of Fire and spells like The Invisible Sling of Vilano . And, the example(s) should be somewhere obvious; either under the Spell Basics heading or as part of the combat rules would work.

  • For Pilum of Fire , our troupe was confused for quite a while about whether or not a stress die was added to the victim's static Soak Total. The full rules for this are split, with damage dealt detailed under the Description header in the Spell Format section, and resisting damage nearly 70 pages away under a section detailing non-combat damage.
  • For The Invisible Sling of Vilano and other spells that require an aiming roll, our troupe thought it was obvious that the aiming roll generated an Attack Total that would be compared to the victim's Defense Total, thereby generating Attack Advantage that would apply to the spell's damage. Otherwise, how the heck could you tell if you hit, given the lack of rules for an Ease Factor for an aimed spell? Even now, after having stumbled onto a thread about aiming spells in which Mr. Chart stated that the intent was otherwise, I have no idea how RAI would derive an Ease Factor for an aimed spell. (just Defense? stress die+Defense? something else?)
6 Likes

Original Research and Experimentation would be fun for more examples.

1 Like

I have a related project I've started and then stopped a few times with.

It would involve taking breakthroughs and coming up with an example pathway for how it might get invented, plus some "dead end" bits of failed research. Do that for as many breakthroughs as possible.

The end result would be a document you could use to generate research outputs for the rest of the order in a saga. Stuff that might appear in the Bonisagus folio, or as an individual publication, or even just as a rumour. I feel like it would be good for plot hooks and verisimilitude in making the hermetic research world seem more alive.

Big project though, real life has consistently conspired to get in the way before I make any major progress...

2 Likes