What Would You Want In A 5th Edition Grimoire?

Maybe a "Print on Demand" sort of thing , rather than a large print run that may not sell.
Buy direct from Atlas , or even just e-23 from Steve Jackson Games.

You still need to recover the costs of authors, editors, layout, playtesters, art, etc. So, there is still a certain non-trivial amount that need to sell to break-even.

I am also under-whelmed by the quality of "Print on Demand" products. Although, I am largely thinking of my experiences of textbooks produced in this way rather than gaming products.

Certainly a legimate concern, particular since I will freely admit that my desire to buy such a product is partly rooted in my total lack of desire to be buy certain older books. However, I do think that a good balance can be struck. I find the old Wizards Grim to be a very good balance of new and old material. Of course, I have no idea how successful it was from the publishers point of view.

One of the biggest things I would find useful is a consolidated list of base effects for each art combination, along with at least one example spell per base.
Extended discussion on things like wards and the like, with concise rulings on how circle targets work, etc.

A very clear and easy-to-read 'build a spell' rules set - with some handy tables showing the different ranges, how many magnitudes they add, etc. Include in this magnitude-boosting guide anything that is specific to certain forms (e.g. terram).

Consolidated lists of ranges, durations and targets. Better rules for things like size-changing spells and how to work out just how much the size changes by (I worked this out myself, but only by inference).

There's a lot of general magic rules that could do with a nice, concise, easy-to-read set of rules for both the new player and the old player alike. As long as such a tome included a combination of clarifications and a few new Hermetic things I think it'd be a worthwhile tome. I know more than a few people in my group would buy it - and these are people who already have all the HoH and RoP books.

A single reference point for Hermetic magic would be nice. Its all well and good having house-specific stuff in the house books, but part of the problem is many of the house books contain stuff that isn't house-specific. The Jerbiton chapter has a big block on imaginem that isn't Jerbiton-specific, the Merinita chapter has a section on house mysteries that are labelled 'Not For Merinita!', the Flambeau chapter has a very good chapter on general use of magic in combat. You need a score of at least 2 in 'Ars Magica Book Lore' to even know where to find half the rules - I personally think a consolidated Hermetic Magic book like this would make an excellent companion to the core rulebook for new groups without treading on the toes of the other books out there.

I'd also include a chapter on 'how to do certain things with Hermetic magic.' A chapter on how to make an effective necromancer with some good spell suggestions, on how to make an effective fireball-slinger with notes on which skills are important and why, etc. Ars Magica is a complex game, and one thing it really lacks is something to help new players get into the game comfortably. Such a chapter could also include some notes on spell combinations and long-term thinking : things you can do with summoning storms, making crops grow, causing a person to decide to wear green each time they wake up in the morning.

The idea isn't to replace the imagination but to give it a boost. The most dangerous thing you can give a new player is a blank slate - most people get intimidated and back off.

Throw in a couple of adventure hooks and ideas related to certain spells in the sidebars and you've got a winner.

If you use a patronage model which requires a certain threshold to be reached prior to working on the text, then you're covered. It's a fairly proven method for getting a project done. I've just finished one myself, here. It's similar to a pre-order model, but involves the patrons more.

-Ben.

Another subject I would love to see hit on in some supplement. (And I think could fit well in a new Grimiore.) Is Hermetic Economics just how much is a really good Tractatus worth or hey how much can I charge for this old wand of carpentry now that we've made a better one for the covenant. I know a lot of the answers to those questions would be pretty covenant specific but a good write up would help point out what choices would have what effects as well as open up a whole new line of potential stories.

Indecently I was already debating posting this idea when I saw this [url]https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/mercere-market-how-do-you-decide-whats-on-offer/5815/1] thread but it helped make up my mind.

Maine, those are really linked to your saga rules and vis level...

This actually highlights one thing that irks me about too many of the Ars Magica books: there's an assumption made that its 'whatever works for you' - and then presenting the big, blank slate. Its also wrong. :slight_smile:

The rest of this post assumes your game is using RAW for things like vis costs, lab rules, xp gains and the like. If you aren't then sure, it depends on your saga. But then again, if you aren't then you can hardly claim to be representing the game as published and shouldn't be surprised if a current or future rulebook contracts your saga.

For magic item costs it definitely isn't linked to covenant vis income. Making magic items has a fixed cost in vis. You can expect a mostly fixed markup on that fixed price (100% is a good guideline). So if a magic item is invested with a lvl 20 enchantment, it costs 2pawns of vis to make - and this doesn't change regardless of your saga vis income.

Even non-magical products of a magi's time have a vis value that are relatively static and independent from the vis income of a covenant. A magus' time is typically valued at how much vis they can extract in one season of lab work doing vis extraction. Aura isn't going to be a significant factor (each +1 is 0.1 pawns), and the only anomalies to this are going to be magi with vis-extraction magical foci or very high Creo/Vim/magic theory scores.

The latter are restrained by a diminishing returns system on xp investment, and xp investment has its baseline set by the '4-5xp for a season of practice' rule. This all feeds back into the vis-extraction formula, which in turn dictates the value of a season of work by a magus as expressed in pawns of vis. If it takes a senior magus 3 seasons to write a summa, that summa is going to be valued at his seasonal vis income x3 - and for a magus who isn't a specialist and who is ~30 years out of gauntlet, that'll most likely be around 15-18 pawns.

This is totally independent of how much the value of a pawn is in your saga. But then, even the value of a pawn is dictated because it isn't the base currency, its a currency backed by the real item of value for magi: a season.

Providing some baseline data removes some of the 'big blank page' intimidation that this game has. It doesn't cause anyone's existing sagas to break, except maybe letting the SG know 'hey, your game is low-vis' or 'wow, your game is high-vis'. Especially since the 'big blank page' isn't actually as blank as we like to pretend. Personally, the above is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see in a book like a 5th edition Grimoire.

I have to agree with this-- the season, and what a magus can do with that season, is the measure of a service or item's value and that value is on a sliding scale. In addition to the provider's capability, there's the provider's reputation to consider because it will impact the value, too. Magi only have so many seasons before death or Twilight, and they're going to be particular about what they trade that limited coin for. I've found that when you present it more like that ("Is this project worth one of my seasons? What else could I be doing?") then it makes sense that someone would be very discerning, that a magus would put an additional cost to the project, because it takes away from his most limited resource-- time.

-Ben.

  1. But then you have eternal magi which destroy the economic system since they don't care about seasons...
  2. you are thinking about straigth season. it's unrealistic in some case. Magus A writes in 2 seasons a summa. He asks his scribe to do 14 copies. He sells each copies. Which his the price for that copy? The full price?

I have tried to answers that for my saga, and it gave me a "metric system" of Trade points and trade scores, but only for covenant to covenant exchanges. I was thinking of submitting it to sub rosa, but this is a excel sheet with so much things and the explanation file does 15 words pages, so i gave up.

Yes this is exactly what I'm talking about. I think a well written section would include good advice on evaluating your own saga's economy and what resources and stories the troop wants to deal with in their own saga. Look at how the Magic and Fairy Realms books presented making characters with might. It wasn't just here's how you make a dragon as a character they pointed out how to match it to the power level of your saga.

This model is too simple to be accurate: it has as a consequence, for example, that any two products of a magus-season's work have the same value, which doesn't seem true at all to me.

But I agree with the main points KG made, about providing guidelines and examples for fitting Hermetic prices to one's saga. Seems like a very playtestable idea.

First, I don't think eternal magi are an issue because they are, effectively, independently wealthy, and don't have to worry about their seasons-- and so they're only going to take on tasks that interest them, that further their own research, or pay back debts they might have incurred while mortal. In most cases, they don't hang a plank and start soliciting work because they want a pile of vis. There really aren't more than two or three options for "eternal magi" where they might be interested in commerce any more. What reason does a nature magus (who's effectively a genus locus), or an ascended magus have for selling his services? A living ghost? A newly Become fae? There's no need for that magus to work on anything he doesn't want to work on because he has all the time he could need and the magical power to acquire any mundane resources he might need. Hermetic society is a convenient indulgence when he decides he wants to participate. In that sense, he's removed from the economic picture and becomes a very specialized, very fickle sort of resource. The only one I can see keeping the interest is the alchemical magus, and given the nature of his breakthrough, I can see him wanting to keep a low profile.

Second, in our saga, we require a scribe to have at least a Magic Theory of 2 in order to copy magical texts without introducing errors. That involves a modicum of investment before things even get started. But even without that requirement, you're looking at three seasons of investment before you can even begin considering a return on a summa. That window also presumes there's not only a market for the summa, but a buyer on hand. Just because your magus has written down his innermost insights on Imaginem or Auram or Vim doesn't mean that the members of the local Tribunal want to read what he has to say. Then you've got to either shop the text around yourself or pay a trusted messenger or Redcap to do the job for you, and that's going incur costs-- which you should get back as long as nothing happens to your representative. That travel is going to take time, too, adding more seasons until see a profit. At this point, you're looking at four or five seasons before you get anything back on that book, and you've invested a bit of time into its creation and distribution. A summa is not a vis fountain, waiting to be tapped.

All of this also presumes an Order of Hermes that's relatively open and friendly, rather than secretive and insular. Think about the magi in your covenant, of the magi in the books. Do they seem like happy, fun, book-club-title-exchanging sorts to you? They don't to me. They seem like hard, gruff, generally unpleasant people with access to nearly (and relatively) unlimited power who do what they want until someone steps in and either stops them or eliminates whatever they were affecting. In that kind of Order, people don't hand out their secrets for the equivalent of some coin, because the more you share with those around you, the less you have for yourself and the weaker your advantage might be should something terrible start and the spells start flying. I'm sure some trading happens, but don't think it happens with high quality texts or on a prolific, widescale basis. Each Tribunal is roughly 100ish highly potent individuals with relatively poor social skills. I think Certamen and legal proceedings and even wizards war probably happen fairly often.

So even if you incorporate a small portion of that social environment, a summa becomes a long-term investment, or a gift, not a method for generating sacks of vis hand over fist.

-Ben.

So you are saying it's saga dependant since in your saga:

  • even old redcap don't teleport themselves with their goods using some teleporting cart.
  • magi don't ask for subscription to a buyer for a book, then write the book, then ask a scribe to do copies, then deliver the book to the subscripter, and sell other copies.
  • you feel the Order to be secretive and insular, when the books give IMO social magi with an order full of ideals, passion, and seems "alive" and enjoying their lives as wizard's.. Think about Garus and his code, think about Falke and her goal, think about Philippus Niger and his desire of exchange with Norse culture, think about Jerbiton artists and meddler with mundane history, think about Flambeau and Crusades, Tremere and their desire to protect europe from threats...

IMO, the only way to do an abstract model is by using an intermediary currency which real value will be decided by every storyguide/troupe.

In a new Grimoire I would like to see better rules about writing and learning from books. I'd like summae to have a range between which they are useful (ones with an effectively infinite range - say 1 to 50 - would be authorities). I would like to differtiate knowledge from other abuilities and I would like reading mundane knowledge books - things you don''t really practice - to be quicker. I would get rid of the half-abliity limit on the level of books you can write, at least for knowledges.

It's interesting... on the one hand, I agree that such issues as Hermetic economy are very saga dependent but, on the other, a lot of the books dealing with the Order present a complex canonical view of it. The Houses of Hermes series establish some fairly detailed descriptions of the Order and the Houses. Covenants presents an Order where covenants are often wealthy landholders and establishs concepts like the Hermetic book cycle. Frankly, the game line has gone a long way to establishing a "canonical" Order of Hermes. It seems stange to me that we steadfastly hold back on including Heremtic economy (House Mercere's vis banking notwithstanding) as being "saga dependent."

In the end, everything is saga dependent. Certainly, my saga's take a very different view of the Order then appears in the current canon and that's fine. At the same, however, I think it's also fine that current game line has established a fairly detailed view of the Order. I may disagree with it and not use it, but it's still useful to present a clear model of how the Order could work... and an economy of books, items and the like would be a useful part of that.

I'd also like to see a better described baseline for the Order of Hermes and its place in Mythic Europe. Along with this, it would be nice to see discussion on ways to dial up or down various facets, such as the size of the order, its cohesiveness, legal organization, level of religious involvement, basic fantasy vs. historical, etc., in ways similar to the description in the core book of high-low-baseline levels of vis.

All the talk about 'what happens if ' highlights something that we as a species have known for quite a while: economics is hard. Accomodating magi with scribes, magi with interesting virtues, whether or not senior redcaps teleport around, etc. all adds complexity to the equation, and makes an abstract model less reliable.

Trying to replicate the full extent of the impact of trade with a singular abstract system will always break, and always does when real-world economists try it.

But then, trying to abstract out the rather complex ways that recovering from injury works, or the extremely complex ways in which people learn also results in end-result systems that aren't matched to reality and that, in certain situations, also break. What is important to us as people running/playing a game is that they are close enough that we can achieve the results we want. We accept the wound rules or the character development rules not because they are perfect or even accurate, but because they are a good enough abstraction to allow us to enjoy our game.

The same thing holds true with in-game economies. As a SG, I don't want to have to create every magus in my tribunal, work out all their stats, work out what each magus personally values a pawn of vis at, which books are currently in demand or which are currently flooding the market. These kinds of things I'd prefer to abstract out to a few simple die rolls and a handy reference table.

When my troupe are off three tribunals over on a story of exploration and they get sidetracked into an encounter with some other magi, I don't want to halt the game and say 'hold up, guys. This magus is ~40 years past gauntlet. Let me just write up his character sheet...' - I want a quick-reference to say something like '40 years past gauntlet: primary two arts around 18, secondary four arts around 12, everything else around 7, abilities you care about at 5-7'. I can then abstract a rough-and-ready magus for certamen, have a quick idea of what books he might have/be interested in, etc.

And since I don't want to model every magus in the Order, I also don't want to accurately and precisely model the intricite exchanges between covenants. I care about my players covenant, its nearest neighbours and just enough detail for the tapestry of stories around that to work. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

Yes, some books are more valued at certain times than others. A buyer or seller can probably abstract finding such deals with a combination of Order of Hermes Lore and Bargain. Yes, some people may be withholding certain texts or trying to play the market and creating artificially inflated prices. I can work around that with some Intrigue rolls. Unless the interaction is directly related to the story I am telling, I don't want such decisions to bog down my story. I want quick, dirty, resolved, move on.

So: abstraction it is. Having some learned people who are experienced with the game and system work out some fairly good abstractions and publishing them in a book makes my life a lot easier. As such, I'm prepared to part with my real-world money in exchange for that. :smiley:

I disagree to some extent: a season is worth whatever the magus can produce in it, and whatever that magus may barter that product for. So if the magus is a longevity specialist but is really bad at vis extraction, one season is worth more vis than he could extract - it's worth atleast* as much vis as he could get from working on someone else's longevity ritual.

I guess we need to distinguish between the personal value (utility) of an item to a particular magus, which I suppose would pretty much correlate with seasons as you say, and the market value of an item, which I think would be much less simple.