Gonna love the last paragraph spoken by someone that has not a freaking idea about the saga of other people or the circumstances surrounding their actions. Such heavy handed statements are better made with caution (yeah, it is me saying this ). Besides the commented statement is totally independent of anyone playing Ars Magica at all: it is about the setting, not individual sagas. I find it extremely weird that among 3000-4000 magi that are twilight ridden in the history of the order NOT A SINGLE ONE has been crazed enough by sheer power feeling to do just that.
BTW, resurrecting old topics is considered bad forum manners
Granted, any particular group can play exactly as they like--including making an ash pile out of the nearest city. I wouldn't argue otherwise. Yet, if they play outside of the sort of things that tend to not happen in Ars cannon, it seems peculiar that they'd challenge its authenticity or verisimilitude.
Having said that, when considering history as per the Ars cannon (and not necessarily that of any specific saga or group of players), the sort of mindset that includes magi running about with reckless abandon is more or less absent for a reason. That reason, as I suggested earlier, is because Ars Magica has always been about power struggles that contain play in interesting ways. Ways that simply are rare or don't even exist in many other RPGs, and their canonical narratives. Hence the true beauty of Ars Magica as an RPG.
"Uber magi" is a playstyle more common (and at home) with RPGs such as D&D. As I see it, if PCs are torching cities in Ars Magica, it's probable that either the SG hasn't raised the consequences/danger bar high enough to make them seriously contemplate the action, or they happen to be the first example of what you speak about--once-in-an-era styled wizards literally gone mad with power. And wizards who are also about to face the consequences of such a flamboyant, attention-drawing lifestyle. grin
However, I would note that the concept could make for a very interesting, very high-powered, and potentially short-lived saga!
SG: Okay guys and gals, you're each going to start by creating a stupidly powerful magi.
Players; Nah-uh!
SG: Yes, except you'll all have a new, major personality flaw I've created--"Mad with Power."
Players: Wuh?
SG: That's right. You'll be crazed, utterly abandoning the conditions imposed on most magi by the Order, intent on terrorizing, controlling, even outright destroying the world of mundanes in an all-out grab for power. You'll seek to make Kings your servants, the Pope your water-boy, and the other Magi? Either they die or they bow in your service.
Players: Awesome! Crazy! Woot!
SG: Keep in mind, you'll be Wizard Marched virtually from the start. The entire Order will try to stop you. Kingdoms of men will be trying to put you down. Demons you have betrayed, saints seeking your destruction, magical beasts who covet your power--the entire world is out for your blood, and you theirs. You are the first in the history of the Order to have gone clearly "Mad with Power."
Players: Woah!
*Character sheets rustle in earnest ... *
Three or so weeks is considered an old topic? A resurrection? Really? Maybe stabbed in the gut, but still breathing as I saw it. shrugs
Well, pretty much you just desxcribed our last silly saga It was glorious. Short lived but glorious. Toledo was the city that is no more. In the moddle of an attack on other magi (no wizard wars declared).
That was an extremely silly saga that went weird from the astart, but in other cases we have seen the code broken BECAUSE the players werte interpreting well personality flaws as you point out. The player just grimaced at having to build a new character in a few days time and went on to an epic finale for the sakes of making a good story. Breaking the code and bad roleplaying are 2 extremely different issues and I would be extremely wary of mixing them up like you seem to be doing ....
Around 5000 magi. 1000 with the capacity of changing the shape of mythic europe (at least). And nobody has done this in 400 years of the Order's history? Not even ONE of them? I find that to be extremely awkward if you look at it too closely.
Back in 3rd edition days, the group I was playing with decided to have a brief, "pre" mini-saga that consisted almost entirely of grogs. Two players had concepts for companions that were involved as well, in a fashion at least. The idea was that the grogs (and whatever covenfolk) were the peasants tied to a particular bastard-of-a-noble, and that some pivotal events would lead the grogs to leave the land they were otherwise bound unto, becoming the population of the future covenant-to-be.
While it didn't lead to the full-scale burning of a major city, like Toledo, it did lead to a row of serious havoc and mayhem in the area. The grogs who survived, a motley group to be sure, eventually came under the protection of the covenant and its magi. It also set the stage for the early years of the covenant, as our magi had to contend with very annoyed nobles and some very concerned magi at other covenants in the Tribunal itself.
It actually ended poorly for almost all of the magi and the covenant itself, but made a very interesting foundation for game play. Two of our wizards were marched (as were another hapless pair from another covenant in the Tribunal), a third died in a dramatic battle vs. mundanes (along with a good many of the grogs), and a fourth fled the Tribunal--her story was never really resolved as the saga more or less concluded by that point. Simply put, fun!
I'm not really confusing the two, and I would put as much (or more) of the blame for "bad roleplaying" on a saga's storyguide as the players, for instances that it applies. I understand what you're getting at, I just think you're overlooking the idea that something akin to this probably has happened, but has been folded into the annals of history as events primarily sourced from mundane causes, rather than magical or Hermetic ones.
Perhaps, in part, due to efforts by the Order at covering up such a calamity. Perhaps, more likely, that an instance of this was because of participation of a magus with mundanes in the surrounding events--a bit like Flambeau's interactions with mundane Christians vs. the mundane Moors (and their sorcerers) in Iberia. In 3rd (or was it 4th?) edition, his end pretty much ended with the destruction of a massive army of Moors (along with himself), a history sadly and apparently lost in 5th editions HoH:S's retelling of the House Founder.
I couldn't resist looking--it was 3rd Edition's, ToH:Iberia (pg 35-37). Facing a "strong force of Arabs, accompanied by a sorcerous contingent," Flambeau and his allied Christian army fought. It ends with ...
"Sensing his imminent destruction, Flambeau gathered his remaining vis and prepared his final spell. As the tower fell, Flambeau's voice echoed through the valley, the clouds of the storm broke and sunlight filled the valley. The collapsing tower roared a last peal of thunder and raised a wave of dust as it fell to the ground. In its wake, silence reigned. Delandos, the Magus set to protect mundane forces on the ground, crawled from the ruins to find no other living creature in the valley."
It even tells of likely and similar endings, thanks to the inspiration of Flambeau:
"Flambeau's last spell ... has become something of a legend within the Order, especially among members of House Flambeau. Some followers of Flambeau habitually carry enormous amounts of vis, sometimes as much as three rooks, to be used in such a final, all-consuming spell ... The Magus typically uses this vis as a last strike against enemies, when all else seems lost."
As I see it, massive, even city-destroying instances probably have occurred in the past. In some regions, such as Iberia, they may even have happened with some sense of comparative regularity but were accepted as an almost natural state of things in a war-torn or highly contested area. Mundanes, who might arguably be the more likely to record a history of things for "mass" consumption (if you will), would also probably credit themselves as the source of the victories (re: calamities) rather than some magus who, eh, "tagged along" and didn't bear mention.
All I'm saying, really, is that a variety of reasons exist to show that the cannon is not necessarily so flawed as you suggest. Events like those you point out probably have happened, just not in such a way that they have been recorded directly as the crazed tongue-wagging of an uber-powerful magus, even if that is precisely what it was. Of course, nothing restricts any of us to the cannon--if we think it flawed, we can write in our own variant of history replete with city-destroying magi.
(yeah, it is me saying this 
). Besides the commented statement is totally independent of anyone playing Ars Magica at all: it is about the setting, not individual sagas. I find it extremely weird that among 3000-4000 magi that are twilight ridden in the history of the order NOT A SINGLE ONE has been crazed enough by sheer power feeling to do just that.
Toledo was the city that is no more. In the moddle of an attack on other magi (no wizard wars declared).
