Which Tribunal is your ArM5 Saga set in?

The covenant is squarely on the territory of the Novgorod tribunal, but the mages chose to join the Rhine tribunal... because otherwise they'll start without any money, books, etc. Politics, politics. :smiling_imp:

Rhine this time around, Hibernia before

Longest-running was in Transylvania.

Why does the poll stack Normandy and Rhine together?

Well...

And I'd guess he did that because they're the two most current tribunal books.

I find it interesting that there isn't a saga set in the Levant yet...

-Ben.

Because there is a limit in how many options can be put forth for vote, and since those were the only ArM5 supplements the author thought it wasn't so bad to put them together in a single option.

I run in the Rhine, border with the Novgorod, in 1150. Border disputes and inter-tribunal politics are a big aspect of the game, and I do not play either tribunal exactly as portrayed in the supplements.

There is one now! Campaign started in 1141 in Alexandria. We're now in 1164. Lots of interesting things happening in Egypt in that time... :slight_smile:

Teufelted

Ultima Thule wasn't one of the choices, lol.

But in any case, for me it all starts in Iberia, and it all comes back to Iberia. I am a medievial Spanish history nut :smiley:

Home covenant is Andorra. Areas in Iberia that I based stories in are Catalonia/Barcelona, Zaragossa, New Castile, the Baelric Islands, and Valencia.

I use a lot of the Iberia book, but I turn down the Demon dial from its setting of 11 to a setting of 2 or 3.

Completely! That's the timeframe I'd consider as well...1140s forward in the Levant is chock full of interesting events... but then my bias probably showed with my Masada article in Sub Rosa. :slight_smile: The Caravanserai article coming up in SR#3 could also work for the Levant.

-Ben.

My current (on hiatus) campaign is set in Thebes.

Even got a game log on the rpg.net wiki set up here: http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Knossos:Main_Page.

Yan is correct.

I originally had all the Tribunals separate and an "Other (please explain)" field but the polling system doesn't allow that many fields sadly.

The free text comments have proved very interesting - particularly the offshoot thread about non-canonical periods started by Matt Ryan:

(It was my intention to follow this post with another one about time, so thanks to Matt for stirring this along!)

Cheers,

Lachie / Jarkman

Ok I see the thing about the max. number of poll options.

But if you consider the value of the statistics, I'd never bundle together 2 of the more popularly used Tribunals, and use up a slot for some of the less used. Then I'd get a large number for two of the more popular choices, and a flat 0 for others. I guess that's statistics for you.

OK, well the point of the Poll is to determine how many people play outside the core ArM5 "Hermetic Heartland" as defined by the published Tribunal books - that's why Rhine/Normandy are one option.

Iberia/Provencal are similarly grouped as they are linked by the existence of the Mistridge/Val du Bosque supplements and ToH: Iberia by White Wolf.

Rome and Greater Alps are just geographically linked as are Stonehenge / Loch Leglean, even though they cross editons ArM3/ArM4 but I just didn't have the poll options to divide them up.

"Other" is captured by comments - I think Ultima Thule and Iceland would be interesting but got the feeling variant settings were in the vast minority.

The point of the Poll was to see how many of the Peripheral Tribunals are used, in particular the ones where there is as yet (or ever) no official development eg. Thebes, Transylvania, Hibernia.

I think it's interesting to note that so far Rome/Greater Alps is hardly used considering it's a combined field and that Thebes/Transylvania total 4 together, yet they haven't been officially detailed (although there's the caveat of Jeremiah's gorgeous Theban Tribunal Sourcebook still available on the web).

Personally I love the concept of a Levant Tribunal but I'm in the minority it seems - although Iberia is a close second favourite.

It would be interesting to speculate why some of the other Tribunals are favoured. Any takers?

Cheers,

Jarkman

This actually makes a lot of sense now.

But the funny thing about my tribunal choices are, which have been the core heartlands, we tend to avoid official tribunal books in my group. We always invent a lot of sluff ourselves, and this don't want to buy any "official" material about it, since the relevant books always seem to be published after we're well underway.
But we might miss out on a lot of fine material though!¨

I might just buy Rhine tribunal, I think it has a lot of good stuff.

I'm the exact opposite - I like reading up on the Tribunal. I also like vis-rich sagas and the mundane-encroachment issue, so my favortie tribunals are the Rhine (I consider GotF the best Tribunal book I've read so far) and Novgorod (pretty good, but lacks in some aspects and the conversion to 5e might be a drag).

Thanks to everyone (42 people as of 7th April) that has responded to the poll so far.

It's been very interesting for me and hopefully others...

Things I've found notable:

45% or 19 people play in Rhine/Normandy which suggests to me that there is some value in Tribunal books that provide some ready-made detail. It also suggests that "vanilla Hermetic" play is reasonably popular perhaps?

At 21% Stonehenge and the Loch Leglean Tribunals are the next most common - somewhat surprising given the lack of hard stats in Heirs to Merlin and the conversion difficulties of ArM3 Lion of the North. Still it's an area rife with possibilities especially along the border, there's the historical enemy the Spider and probably people are pretty familiar with the area.

Considering that there's the two ArM3 Tribunal books, Sanctuary of Ice and all the Mistridge Saga / Four Seasons material I found the low rating of Provencal/Iberia interesting - I'd be interested in why people played Sagas in this area and I get the impression that these are long-running older Sagas that have converted over editions...

The lack of Sagas in other Tribunals does not surprise me that much but I'd be interested in why exactly people chose to set their Saga in a peripheral Tribunal.

Some of this has come out in the comments but I'd like to hear more.

Thanks,

Lachie / Jarkman

I would not contribute all the difference to the availability of tribunal-books. I think a lot of the people make their choice based on their own origin. This might explain the popularity of Stonehenge and the Loch Leglean Tribunals since Australian and American people have a stronger connection with the British islands.

My current troupe started out playing in the Tribunal of Rome. We collectively wanted somewhere medieval-feeling with plenty of potential conflict that wasn't too close to home.

But when we switched sagas we came right back closer to home and set our saga just outside Rye, which is a short distance from where we live. We thought the time was right to take a look at our local area (we have one amateur archaeologist and one keen dog-walker who runs a shop in Rye) through the Ars Magica filter.

Personally, I've run sagas in Stonehenge, Loch Leglean, and Rome but we've set stories all over the place (Transylvania, Rhine, Levant, Provencal, Greater Alps, etc.). We haven't yet set anything in Normandy, but I'll get round to that once I've done a Scottish story for our new Flambeau.

Yes, I wondered about that as noted above.

Jarkman

Currently, though it is running a bit slow, I'm set up in the Hibernian Tribunal. In the past, it's been Provencal and Rhine, with side trips to Thebes, Levant, Loch Leglean, Rome, Iberia, and the mystic isle of Zipangu. We've had one saga in the Hinterlands surrounding Transylvania, and another that is cruising around the Med.

Steve