I have to admit, I'm not up to date on That Other Game.
I'd heard people complaining about "renting rules", but the last time I had a clue where things weregoing with That Other Game, it was 2nd edition :-/
Well the 4ed of TOG did bring in some new players, but the losses were high enough that this did not offset them. It was only about 3 years ago I think that the NYT actually had a small piecec on WotC, 4e, and the first hint that a 5e was on the way. In that article vague references were made to a learning process, mistakes being part of that, etc., which basically gave everyone I knew the impression that they were admitting to a fubar on their part with the handling of 4e and the rather drastic changes that were part of it's system mechanics.
Which just wraps me back around to the concept of forking an IP rather than forcing a one size fits all approach. A lot of observers faulted their open source approach to 3.5, but perhaps their mistake was that they didn't follow the open source model far enough. Sure Paizo stepped up with their own fork of the 3.5 SRD, but if WotC had pursued their own branching they might have avoided this altogether.
Well this is all just a roundabout way to say that I think the Gumshoe branch is a solid idea and, new though I am, I look forward to it and other play options being co-supported with ArM5.
Article cited here: mobile.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/ar ... rrer=&_r=0
New idea:
Instead of marketing it to the hip and trendy crowd, let's market it to the old geezers who meet every Thursday to play cards and talk about the old days.
We'll show 'em what the old days are all about 
I have nothing meaningful to contribute to the discussion. So you got the above joke instead.
OGL brought with it both pro's and con's; I think WotC were smart to move away from it, and Paizo smart to move in and pick it up.
4th Edition had some really good ideas in it, they just weren't the right ideas. Anyone who has ever done games development of any kind will be familiar with these.
I, for one, really like what they've done with the latest edition. I play it regularly; I personally prefer it to Pathfinder.
So from my perspective, it seems to me that 4th was moving away from OGL, while 5th/Next was admitting to the fault in 4th. Since Ars Magica doesn't have an OGL, it doesn't have a political reason to move away from one. 
I expect we'll be sitting on a 5th edition of both games for a while yet. 
I personally didn't care for 4e as D&D. But as part of the forking question it seems that it would make a nice tabletop battle system for small squads/groups of miniatures with some background and class variation kept from the original.
And I have no expectation of ArM5 or 5e going OGL. In fact I agree that it fit at the time for d20 but probably not currently for either game. I suppose I am just carrying over the concept of forking, but leaving it up to the IP holders to develop or support these as they see fit.
Hum... An Ars Magica card game? Something based on Certamen might be cool.
Like, yu have attack on the left, defense on the right. Your invocations are determined by "terrain cards" for your arts, parma and all.
At any turn, instead of a summons, you may shift your arts between attack and defense.
There are many aspects of Ars Magica that would make for a great card game. There's enough variation in the setting to support a full on CCG, if you ask me, which I note you didn't, but still...
A good few years back I did start looking at something along those lines with a guy in my troupe. We got quite excited by the prospect at the time but then time and events overtook us, along with the realisation that we weren't really in a position to do anything about it.
I've been playing a lot of the Board Game Lords of Waterdeep on the iPad. I've never played Grand Tribunal but I keep thinking a another high end board games based Ars would be cool. Something like Lords of Waterdeep but maybe based on the life cycle of a covenant. Where players have to simultaneously cooperate to build up a covonant while viaing for it's resources to score individual goals. Basically like playing through a saga in the afternnoon. Something I wouldn't be surprised some of the folks at Atlas have already thought of.
That actually sounds pretty cool
Hi,
An AM card game, CCG or modern style, definitely could work, ranging from reskinning Netrunner (Quaesitor vs Mystery Cult, or something, with various agendas that break the code "Diedne Resurgence" "Puppet Pope" etc), to a multiplayer game with face up and face down cards.... there's a lot of AM lore to play with, even signature characters.
Of course, there's always CCG potential in Ars Magica: The Forum Wars.....
Anyway,
Ken
I would definitely buy an (obviously anachronistic) ArM5 Tarot that somehow played into the current game.
Some kind of diplomacy and debate deck would work well with this game in particular. As would deck tie ins to the various aspects of running a Covenant I think.
I think Pathfinder handled the card aspect of their products pretty well. I'm just not sure how well the various decks with tie in mechanics sold.
Also, an ArM5 themed map set would be really cool. (I love maps.) One 'world' map followed by similarly sized maps of each Tribunal's jurisdiction would be exceptionally neat.
Also, curious if there are any plans to run a print on demand for hardcover copies of out of print ArM5 books.
Could a Certamen card game be designed so that it can be played to say, "Tribunal" rules as an alternative to resolving in game certamen or "for love" as a standalone game? Or would that be too difficult?
Difficult? Quite possibly
Cool? Yes, very IMHO
A chess variant would be cooler, but more difficult I suspect.
If you come to Grand Tribunal UK www.grandtribunal.org you will see.Spidermage's Certamen card game, and at least four Ars Magica themed boardgames that have been played there in design but none are yet with Atlas as far as i know
Spiderman has a Certain card game?
Let's hear about it.
Spiderman is Andrew right?
First, it's Spidermage, not Spiderman.
Second it's Spider-man, not Spiderman.
Third it's "autocorrect" not "I'm too lazy to read what I wrote on this small phone screen before I post"
I stand corrected, thanks.
Not the first time nor the last. At least I'm using the English dictionary for autocorrect.
Now that this thread has been resurrected, I will chime in on the original question.
I think for ArM5 there have been two audiences: the people who are actively playing the game, and what I call the "collector audience" who buy and read the books, and talk about the game, but don't necessarily have an active Saga. Both of these audiences are important and I think it's in Atlas' business interest, and in the community's interest, to continue to serve both audiences.
My own writing (of which there has been relatively little) is squarely aimed at the active player audience. That is simply what I'm interested in and where I think my talents lie. The active player audience needs to be able to draw in new people because sagas don't last forever. Players move away or drop out for real-life reasons. When we say "make the game approachable and inviting for new players," that benefits not only the newcomers, it also benefits experienced players who want to play Ars and need new people to play it with. So making it easy and inviting to take up the game and to join the community is important to keeping the community alive. Everyone understands this and the huge progress we've made in making the online community welcoming to newcomers (since the bad old days of the early 90s Berk List) attests to it.
It's pretty straightforward what the game needs to draw in new players. Simpler character creation. More and better artwork. More ink spent on how to design a magus, how to play a grog, why Mythic Europe is awesome and why troupe style play is worth doing. All of this would crowd some crunch and maybe some setting stuff out of the core book, but I think that is a manageable problem.
For the collector audience, there is a bigger risk and a bigger business problem. You see, the collector audience is self-selected for people who really enjoy the current edition and the way the setting has evolved. These are people who would be resistant to a setting reboot, by definition. What I think the collector audience wants is more depth in the setting and more rules options. More stuff, both fluff and crunch. To be blunt, what I think the collector wants is for ArM5 to keep going the way it has been going under David Chart.
Please don't take offense if you identify as part of the "collector audience." I don't mean to imply you don't play. I said up front the collector audience is important and that Ars Magica needs to serve both audiences. Collectors are simply people who are highly invested in the canon. I suspect they drive the majority of sales because that's the way the whole tabletop industry works.
I do think the collector audience can embrace change if it is limited in scope and clearly change for the better. I'll point to Timothy's reboot of House Tremere as a sterling example. Almost no one loved House Tremere before that. For ArM6, the ArM5 Houses may be hard to improve upon (the low-hanging fruit was picked already in ArM5) but there may be other areas to take something fairly lame and make it cool. Perhaps certamen, or the way Tribunal meetings work, or making hedgies more powerful. But I do not think a new edition is something the collectors would ask for. They're not the drivers. They're the audience Atlas has to try not to lose. They are the people Atlas will need to win over in order to make the new edition a success. Revolutionary change -- saying "ArM5 was awesome until yesterday. Now it's garbage, and you should try this totally different ArM6 instead" -- is NOT the way to win them over.
To some extent the newbie audience and the collector audience seem to have conflicting needs, but really they can be harmonized. David managed to pull it off, as you can tell by the significant number of members on this forum who started with ArM5 and are now regular posters here.
I think 6E's audience should be... a bigger audience.
5th Edition is essentially done, and it is incredible. I don't think a 6th edition following the same basic rules does anything to support an shrinking subset of gamers who likely already love AM and have 5th edition.
I am excited by the prospect of Magic Shoe, and the Fiasco playsets - Mythic Europe as a way to expose new folks to the setting.
That said, I'm in a bit of a bind. The long term nature of AM seems to rely on a very grainy rules set.
A very grainy rules set that demands a high level of mastery is a VERY hard sell to get new players to buy into. AM is not very new player friendly.
I'd like AM to be very successful for Atlas, but I don't think "more of 5th edition, but better" gets to that goal.
I feel like the AM that I enjoy tinkering with is complete enough.
I'd like a better way to enjoy the setting, perhaps... for cons, pick up games, etc.
In my secret heart, I want an easy to teach game that still has all the awesome bits of 5th edition, but I feel like that might be impossible.
Vrylakos