Again, picking on Normandy is...singling it out when all of the Tribunals have problems in their political structures. Shards and Tokens in Thebes, a secondary economy trying to supplant vis because the Tribunal is so rich with vis? It is ill-defined and probably can't withstand any level of pushing/scrutiny without a lot of work to flesh it out. The gild system of the the Rhein? That's a mess, don't see how such a system can stand for as long as it has supposedly been in effect, let alone the more "advanced" magi having more votes, and being able to have their votes used from beyond...
My biggest problem with Normandy isn't the banditry, per se. It's the feudal relationship that it has adopted as a method of governance, mimicking the nobility. To me, that's disgusting (imagining I were a magus), that's the horrible premise. Banditry against a covenant, I see that as more of a consequence of their horrible method of governance. I don't have a problem with collective ownership of the vis by the Tribunal, or doling it out at a tournament.
The politics, IMO, in all the tribunals defined in 5th edition, so far, have problems.
I also agree with Jonathan. I may seem inconsistant, but I do see his point. It seems to be a trend nowadays to somehow make each tribunal radically different from the rest of the order.
I also see a flaw in all arguments presented thus far, even mine. Ars Magica is sorta stuck in time. We are actually looking at a microcosm of each tribunal: how things exist and are being done in a single particular year (1220). Details of past history mainly focus on how things got to here (and a few order-wide landmark events, if any). Future history is up for grabs. My point is that, whatever the particular cultural or legal quirk may be, it may not have always been that way and may not stay that way. Mayhaps said quirk was a 10 year long event in the 400 yrs of a tribunal's history. 1220 just happens to be one of those years.
Having said that, I still feel major quirks should be suggestions or plot ideas rather than nailed chamberpots. Something organic that can be grown or die off instead of presented as a static fixture. And if the quirk is something feasable, then perhaps suggest how it could be carried over to other tribunals (pereginators in Stonehenge, etc).
Pretty much. I agree. In the end we all say the same :mrgreen: It is just that the banditry is what broke it for me, but the whole system got me on edge while reading the book. The fact that you can destroy a covenant through hunger (effectively, a long range siege method) and burn its mundane library and you are not committing a crime at all got me thinking "no way" all though the book.
True as well, but I only had a passing interest in Thebes, for example, so it did not impact me as much. As per the RAW the Thebes tribunal only works if the Order of Hermes is NOT a pan-European organization. Otherwise it would be milked heavily for apprentices (unclaimed Gifted children bundled in a covenant ready to be picked? Hell yeah! I will come to visit my friends in that covenant each year from my Iberian covenant and see if any of the children are interesting; if they are, I will get a new apprentice easily). GotF is the more vanilla setting of the ArM5 tribunal books so far. It has issues, but the changes are not so radical as not being able to pass as local political quirks to me. Basically it is only that older magi get more votes. The rest of the stuff is fairly standard.
I've got no problem with the various variations presented in the Tribunal books.
Any tribunal anywhere can be abused, and every tribunal everywhere has a mechanism for dealing with that abuse.
The ruling in Normandy may well have come about in the wake of the schism war - precisely to stop rampant wizard's wars. It may be that it is no longer needed, but codified laws take time to change. That could be an interesting political saga: the new magi wanting to do away with the outdated law, the old guard digging in their heels.
As for Thebes and their apprentices? I say good luck with that one. Sure, by the Code there's nothing stopping your Iberian magus from doing that. There's equally nothing in the Code stopping the polity of Thebes deciding they think your Iberian magus is abusing their system and wizard's war-ing him into oblivion for it. So yeah, I'd definitely say 'go for it!' in my saga because it'd make for some really interesting stories.
At the end of the day, Wizard's War trumps everything. It does mean might makes right, but this is 1220. Being a weak covenant without the allies to protect you is going to be trouble no matter what tribunal you're in - and if you have allies worth a damn then things like the Hermetic banditry in Normandy are things you do have a recourse for - namely getting your allies together and going over to beat the crap out of them.
That breaks the spirit of the creation of Order in the end, so I doubt this would be very popular. WW is supposed to be a tribunal of last appeal. Abuse is penalized. Getting marched trumps everything, not WW. Abuse of WW gets you marched. Or it used to be the case. Can't remember of this is 5th edition RAW or it is 4th edition RAW. It is a sensible ruling, in any case.
It doesn't break the spirit of the creation of the Order at all.
WW is an immediately available recourse for when someone is trying to play the system. Not necessarily the tribunal of last appeal, because if someone is being an ass then WWing them nice and early - and publically - sends a clear message to anyone else thinking similar thoughts.
The problem is there's no codified definition of 'being an ass.' As such, it becomes a case of who your allies are and who their allies are when it comes to trying to pursue a case of WW abuse. Which means we're right back to allies and supporters again. The reason this works (then and now) is because someone who is an ass will tend to end up with less allies. Because they're an ass.
A lot of people view WW from the perspective of a green magus, where pretty much any WW is stacked against you. Given that most sagas start fresh out of apprenticeship with a covenant full of such magi, it only takes one bully of advanced years to be able to do significant damage to the poor young covenant with WW. Such a bully is likely to get themselves into trouble, and in the interests of narrative the solution that trouble is typically the young magi getting their courtroom drama. Having some senior Flambeau magus who enjoys roasting bullies for the good of the Order step in and make the problem go away is a bit deus ex machina, even though a group of noble PC magi of senior years may well do exactly that to an NPC bully they see picking on a startup covenant.
As soon as you start looking at WW from the perspective of summer or autumn magi (30+ years out of Gauntlet), it stops being a scary thing of scariness and becomes just another political tool.
To tie this back to the whole 'variable tribunals' thing - it still serves as a very direct way for someone to exercise their displeasure at someone trying to 'game' the system. When PCs are likely to be the ones doing such system-gaming (e.g. Iberian magus abusing the Theban apprentice policy), having a pissed off senior magus come in and trash their lab and steal their stuff as an abject lesson in why you shouldn't sounds fine to me. And if the PCs aren't the ones doing such system-gaming, then having an NPC do it to them is a great opportunity for player combat-magi to get their war on.
My advice: Learn to stop worrying and love Wizard's War.
I wrote a long rambling paragraph about the shortfalls of the Order as described. Then Firefox crashed and I lost it. So I will resume it:
Well, I differ. Mythic Europe is great. However, the political design of the 5th edition tribunal books do not seem to be of my troupes liking since they do not match the description of the order in the core book, that is basically a work of art messed up in further supplements. Our milleages vary. No biggie about that.
Now I'm picturing a grog dropped from a shapeshifted magus (dragon/large bird). The grog is sitting atop a large charged device with a single charge, that being a very large R: Personal CrIg effect. (Now where is the cowboy hat smiley, or the one saying "Yeehaw," if I remember correctly.)
More on-topic, I feel very differently from an earlier post. One of the big things I love about ArM5 is how things are built to be more consistent and complete. In terms of books, this is the first edition with all four realm books. I would really love to see every tribunal covered specifically in this edition.
I appreciate that you're saying "it doesn't work for us," NOT "its bad and wrong and everyone else should hate it too," so it would be silly to debate your valid perspective; I'm just riffing off your comments. And my copy of Normandy has been ordered but not yet arrived, so I can't comment on that.
But I did like GotF and Thebes. I looked at them, not as contradicting the core book, but expanding on it. If one first read a 5 page description of the United States, describing our political, economic, and social systems, and then four 128 page books describing California, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Louisiana, the locales described would sound little like that short description. The first deals in generalities, the second deals in specifics.
EDIT: Tried to make it clearer that, while I wanted to explain why the books make sense to me, I wasn't commenting in opposition to Xavi's points.
Xavi never said every one else should hate it too. He is voicing an opinion in a relevant discussion, and stating the reasoning behind his opinion. He is not telling us what our opinions should be.
On a different note, I put in my vote for Novgorod. I would have picked Ultima Thule but it wasn't an option. But with the more advanced system for Hedge Magic and details for magical creatures, both fine features of ArM5, a retreatment of this/these region/s would ROCK.
My view is that the old core Tribunals - more or less the old Frankish areas of France, Western Germany, the Alps, and Italy should be mostly consistent with the core book and that things should get more different the further away one gets. So I'm cool with Thebes, Levant, Novgorod, etc., being idiosyncratic but I'm opposed to authors getting too "creative" about Western Europe.
I chose Loch Leglean (sic?), even though I can't pronounce it, in the hope that we'll get a high-fantasy tribunal to play with... that should be fun...
In terms of existing 5e tribunals, overall - I like that different tribunal books provide different visions of how the Order's tribunals work. I agree that in principle it would be better to present such things as options, but in practice I don't think you can give enough detail to make that work and be consistent with the rest of the tribunal book. I also see the sense in Jabir's suggestion of keeping the core tribunals vanilla - but I don't really mind that they aren't. I think that kind of thing can be easily ignored, and don't mind un-nailing that chamberpot. I prefer to have more variety and ideas then sticking to vanilla, although I do admit at least some tribunals should be adhering more closely to the core book or it starts to get a little ridiculousness.
I personally liked the GotF politics quite a lot. I liked that elder magi got more votes, and it felt "right" to me in terms of how I feel the Order values and respects age and as a reasonable power-grab by the tribunal's elders. I also liked the Gilds, as loose associations with clear political agendas; I didn't like the idea that you can't change gild. Oh - and I didn't like the idea of chapter houses, as these I find are poorly defined and don't make much sense, but it wasn't a major issue. Other than that, it was a great tribunal with pretty standard politics.
I didn't like Normandy's political system. I didn't mind the feudal structure, nor the banditry - which I thought strange, but manageable. What I hated was the vis tournament, which I found demeaning and overly mundane-like. I also just didn't care for the tribunal itself - I just didn't find it interesting or appealing.
I found Thebe's system of Shards utterly unworkable, but would gladly suspend that disbelief and play with it nonetheless. It establishes a nice flavor to the tribunal, of a body-politic quite unlike the wild contests of the wild West.
Thebes is the absolute end all, be all, badassery of Tribunals. I adore the Shard and Token concept. I love the general chaos of the near democratic governance. I love being a pirate. As a man once said of bowties, "Thebes is cool."
But as for the mass belief that the Alps should not have a book, one question. Being surrounded by all of these mighty and powerful neighbors (Rhine, Normandy, Rome, oh my!) how does such a small and obscure place maintain its independence?
Sure there are mountains, but what are mountains to wizards of power. Sure it is landlocked, but again have magi, will travel. I just wonder... what are those shifty Swiss up to?
Alps have a book, "Sanctuary of Ice". IMO, it was the most kick ass tribunal book of ArM4. How does it stay independant? Alps is home to half the Archmagi of the Order.
I'm not 100% sure Pietro fits the New Flambeau. Although I have to say, he's still a character I like the idea of.
Take Vincent Price when he's the older, sparkly eyed father figure from Edward Scissorhands. Give him mastered lighning bolts. Make him a Tytalus who forced entrance into House Flambeau to see if he could annoy them a lot and colonise their house with his lineage of air mages. Make him the hidden general of the Hermetic militia and give him an amulet which probably makes him immune to Fatigue loss, and possible blood loss. Have four or five of his kids (who all master IoL and sustained flight in apprenticeship) live with him. Have the others hang out in Hopolitic bases in other Tribunals, but with magic items which let them bringtheir friends home.
Now, give him a way to communicate with pretty much everyone who has ever been a hoplite, and twenty five years to prepare his ground against all of House Flambeau if they come to purge his kids if he goes into Twilight.
You can try to invade, sure, but the guy in charge of stopping you if it comes to fisticuffs? It's this guy.
You forget who you're talking too
There is no new flambeau, just another pov.
Pietro is an awesome Flambeau in any edition, and I actually utilized him most in 5th edition. Scan the "Light of Andorra" saga here on line. He made a few guest appearances.
IMS, because he is such a bad ass with his power and plans, the other Flambeau eventually respect and even admire him.
In fact, I have been tinkering with the idea of an archmagus game and Pietro would fit in perfectly with the plot ideas i have.
Pietro is like Delendos and Vancasitum, legendary Flambeau magi whom I shall always cherish and always remind people about.
I think he was based on the old WoC Houses of Hermes, a qick blurb about a guy who won his way into the Flambeau by defeating 7 champions w multicast lightning bolts.
Yes, he was based on the throwaway line in the old HoH.
It's not him as such who doesn't fit - I think his fear his children will be purged from the House doesn't quite fit the Flambeau chivalry thing that they are now doing, do you? That's important because its what drives him to make his children into killing machines. Seriously: to have mastered IoL at graduation, it means he is taking little kids and saying "Here's how you make a lightning bolt. Sure, this is the chosen weapon of God Himself but you need this, because some of my enemioes are likely going to want to kill you when I'm older. So, always have somewhere to hide and the resources for a guerilla war. Now, you need to master this, which means you need to use it in combat a fair bit. Time to put you in dangerous situations."
So, he's got the whole Tytalus loving abuse thing going on, and I'm not sure he needs to have it in the new edition.
