Spontaneous magic is really cool; but barely useful most of the time. It also tends to require looking up effect levels. This makes the verb-noun magic invention take more of a back-seat in fast sagas.
In 6ed I'd love to see simplified guidelines for spontaneous magic, whereby the level of the spell is explicitly variable in-setting. When you spontaneously cast something it may end up a magnitude or two above or below the formulaic difficulty.
In the fiction the reason could simply be the variance in the stars; making a formulaic spell compensates for that and makes the magnitude reliable. Out of the fiction it means no more looking up spell levels in the middle of an adventure.
We actually want a high barrier to entry to people can be hopelessly confused and not be interested in playing the game? We want a game that the GM has to have fastidiously memorized and the players find system mastery such a high barrier that they can't be bothered and just let the overworked GM calculate everything for them?
Yet I also agree that there are too many simple RPGs out there that you can "pick up and play" and then the interest is gone after a few sessions since they are so mechanically boring. (Risus and FATE come to mind). I think a true point about the current Ars Magica community is that yes, in general, people who stay playing the game like the crunch.
Yet, I cannot help but think there should be a serious look at unnecessary complexity in the mechanics of the game.
Why is that rules around spells often refer to the "magnitude" or "the spell level / 5" repeatedly? Why not just have all spells use their magnitude for the level, and perhaps even drop the word "level" altogether?
Why not have Arts using a smaller scale that spells can be a direct function of? (As I said earlier - Creo 1 +Ignem 2 = Magnitude 3 Creo Ignem Effects) The die roll could be repurposed to do something else.
What mechanical purpose does it serve for the Arts to have such a fine granular difference, often increasing your arts by 1 will not make a difference 90% of the time from one adventure to the next.
Speaking only for myself, having the ability to see numbers increasing on a spreadsheet each time is an incredibly addictive feature, and part (a small part) of why I was initially hooked on ArM5 (having a great SG helped...)
This to me is not reparameterization invariant; having bigger numbers is always cooler psychologically even if we divided everything (scores and levels) such that there was no mechanical difference.
My main needs would be a reformation of Magic Resistance and combat. I'm not exceptionally fond of the way either one works. Penetration is also a bit wonky for non-Hermetics, it's a bit hard to understand how they ever dealt effectively with magic beings sometimes, except through entirely mundane means.
It often feels like magic resistance produces a massive negative pressure against things which are core hallmarks of Medieval myth, like magical weapons. It feels like a legal exercise when you're hunting for loopholes.
Another big, BIG thing would be making advancement monthly instead of seasonally. I mean, if I want to skip seasons I can just add three months together, but dividing seasonal advancement is a little more awkward (what, divide it by 2? Since you can miss a full month per season without it affecting advancement - albeit not lab work.)
Further refining the magic guidelines would be nice. What's a +1 complexity and how does it differ from a +2? How do different Arts work in practice?
There's a lot about the guidelines where I have to read the example spells extensively to see how things are meant to be done. For instance, I'd never have known that I needed a known quantity of Vis in hand to weigh an unknown quantity of Vis from the guidelines, I had to read a spell for it.
Also, some spells revolve around special effects that aren't actually relevant to the description of a spell. E.g. the famous Pilum of Fire. Supposedly it creates a lance of flame If you're targeting someone in a stone shell you can't see them and thus can't target them, but if they're in a glass sphere you can see them and thus can target them... and the pilum mysteriously passes through it? So is the spell creating a flame that you hurl, or is it creating a flame on the target person? Why would someone ever do the former, since it's inherently less useful than the latter?
Clarifications like that would be immensely helpful.
As a very minor thing, I also wish there'd have been an eye to providing more information about the setting so I can introduce non-specialists to it much more easily. I know you get that in the expansion books, but it's often hard to demand people read those extensively.
Having had players like this, it's a misery. I wouldn't exchange the complexity of Ars Magica for the world, though - it's a main part of its allure to me, aside from my aforementioned issues.
I'd like it if Ars Magica were more intuitive, not less complicated.
Yeah, I hear that complaint fairly often as well. Fixing that would probably be nice, but without sacrificing something else useful in the process preferbly.
That said, this weekend I was asked what would change if Parma Magica didn't exist? Let the Gift protect against the Ill Will engendered by the Gift, and remove MAgic Resistance/Penetration completely?
It has some effects I don't personally like, but could we live completely without penetration issues?
Great. So no I have to do divisions when I miss 10 days instead. Or even 1 day.
IMAO, the advantage you're looking for doesn't exist.
There's a reason the 1st edition had advancement in months and every edition since then has worked in seasons.
Agreed.
I personally find Ars rather intuitive. I find myself frustrated by other systems that neither the strength nor the flexibility of Ars Magica. ... and it's not even like I still have math as my main language these days ...
This one is a huge player-fallacy I see coming up time and time again.
An increase by 1 in an art is actually a big deal, provided that the dice range being used is within scope; that is, the die result actually matters even if it isn't a 1 or a 0. An increase of 2 is also important; which is where blowing vis on casting rolls comes into play.
The reason why an increase in 1 is a big deal when the dice are in scope is because a 1-point increase adjusts the failure percentage. This is where things are exciting; when comparing performance increases, it is best to look at the chance of failure compared to the old chance of failure. A 1-point change can mean as much as a 50% improvement in capability within a specific spell. This is why mastery also only adds 1 to the casting total; in a binary system like spellcasting (it succeeds or fails), 1 can be enough.
Whether or not a casting roll is in scope varies from casting to casting. A spell that the caster has no problems with becomes a challenge when the aura changes, or the realm that the target belongs to changes. This means that for an adventuring magus, a +1 to any art is always a good deal - even if it doesn't always seem like it.
Yes. As long as you are casting spells and the die roll matters, and it matters that you succeed first time (usually this means you are in a combat round) then a +1 matters. That is, it matters if you are casting at the limit of your capacities --- which could be because you need a high penetration, just don't have good Arts Scores (relative to the effect attempted), or you are standing in an inconvenient flavour of aura (or some combination of like factors).
So, for a magus actually out and adventuring in "action" settings it matters a great deal.
Where it doesn't matter so much is for inventing spells, and for magi who are mostly casting in circumstances where they can just have another go if it doesn't work the first time.
When MR: a 50-50 to penetrate means you are doing half "damage", drop a magnitude and you'll do full "damage". (with Soak, maybe +10 damage half the time is better than +5 damage every time, but that's the border case)
Lab routine can offers +11 for that season you reaaly need it. (nocturnal, addled, double-overtime)
Sponting would require 2-points changes but you don't care because success is in steps of 10.
But still, counting by 10 is much easier than counting by whatever other step would replace it.
Well, yes, but failing by 11 is still a problem. So, a +1 is still handy, if you are in the circumstance that the die roll makes a difference to success.
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here. You either penetrate or you don't? So a +1 to penetrate is always useful, if you are in the situation that a die roll is going to make a difference to penetration.
Yes, +1 is no great advantage when inventing spells rather than casting as there are lots of different ways to get that last +1.
You have a Casting Total of 16 and are trying to cast a Mag. 2 effect (ignoring stress die effect) you need a roll of 4+ [(16+4)/2 = 10], so have a 60% chance of success.
I have a Casting Total of 17 and are trying to cast a Mag. 2 effect (ignoring stress die effect) I need a roll of 3+ [(17+3)/2 = 10], so have a 70% chance of success.
For some reason you know CrIg20 PoF and a boosted CrIg25 PoF. Would you rather:
do +15 damage all the time (even a roll of 0 penetrates)
do +20 damage half the time (you need 5+ to penetrate)
And Casting Total of 15 still has 60%, so a +1 is useful half the time.
The other point here is you cannot fail a Mag. 1 effect and cannot succeed a Mag. 3 effect (unless you explode). Using ceremonial, MMF, or dropping a magnitude by touching the target or any other mean is way more efficient than getting a +1.
So in theory is doesn't do much, but in practice... you surely know better than I do
In general, in-play, you have a spell you want to cast. If the die roll is relevant, then a +1 is relevant.
Sure, you can cast a totally different spell instead. If you happen to have instead invented two similar spells that are useful for the current problem, but that's not really comparing anything useful.
No it doesn't. Casting Total 15 (Mag. 2 effect) you need a roll of 5+ [(15+5)/2 = 10], so a 50% chance of success?
Sure. Taking Virtues and reinventing spells is a bigger bonus than getting +1. Much bigger, in-play, cost of those strategies.
I can tell you that "don't make it accessible to new players" is never going to be a goal of ours. We do want to increase the market for the game beyond those who already play it, without telling those who already play it that they are somehow doing it wrong. As you can imagine, this requires a great deal of consideration and thought for how a new edition will be developed. But, at no point would we decide to go with a game that folks with no experience of Ars Magica (or games like it) couldn't pick up and play.
I think the real issue is when "making it accessible to new players' becomes "dumbing it down"
If you really want to improve accessibility to new players I would focus less on the complexity of the rules and more on the layout and comprehensibility. Make sure all the rules on a given topic are in the same place even if that means repeating yourself instead of making them look through seven different locations in three different books to figure out if they can or cannot do what they are trying to do.
I have been thinking a lot about the economics of rpg publishing and historically well supported (and hence presumably profitable) lines have been very crunchy. Indie lite mechanics games generate revenue through core releases; but most "brand recognition" systems with 40+ supplements have achieved it by ferocious mechanical complexity and high cost of learning the rules.
There is one exception I can think of: Glorantha. The setting is what keeps the RQ/HQ supplements coming. Ars 5th was probably 75/25 rules versus setting: I may be wrong - but Mythic Europe has the potential for that kind of development even with a totally different rules set sans crunch.
There's a world of difference between 'dumbing down' and 'simplification' - but there is a direct correlation where dumbing something down often also results in simplification as a by-product, so many (especially junior) game designers fall into the trap of thinking a request to simplify means dumbing it down, and thus such requests can generate resentment.
Effective simplification is actually really friggin' hard to do without losing the substance of the game. It's not something you can 'just do.' Judging by Cam's comments, Atlas are very acutely aware of this.
Which is not to say it's impossible, but more to say that finding the right person to pull it off is tricky. There's far more people who think they can than people who actually can. Combine that with the diplomatic skills to manage a team of designers and finding the right crew for something like this becomes really hard.
This is equally true to any discipline that deals in games, be it paper RPGs or boardgames or computer games or whatever. Which is why the amount of dross out there far outweighs the amount of really quality product.
So I suspect Atlas' first move is going to be finding an appropriate replacement for David. That's going to take some doing, which is in no way a disparaging remark against any of the other writers at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure most if not all of you write-y types know exactly what I mean.
Don't assume, either, that the model of producing forty supplements on a 4/year basis is something that we would be repeating with a new edition. Many of the strongest RPGs on the market right now are being really conservative about what they decide to print, and when they do it's with a substantial production value. Support of games via PDF or POD as a secondary market also keeps those major tent pole products viable.
I actually don't think it is that difficult to make Ars Magica accessible without dumbing it down at all. Certainly once people get their head round the Houses and Mythic Europe, and the notion of what a covenant is and the Order of Hermes - very simple concepts - you can just launch in to creating stories set in Mythic Europe. I had to go out today but I had two hours spare this afternoon so I rewrote Ars Magica as an introductory level game and ran it tonight with Darkwing, Phil, Lloyd and my housemate Lisa (not a gamer, has played 5 or 6 sessions of Ars over the years but this is the only rpg she has ever played and she played mainly socially as a reason to come along to Grand Tribunal and chat to people).
So 120 minutes to strip down Ars to a game that feels like it is still Ars Magica but even a non-gamer can pick up and enjoy? I thought it would prove more of a challenge than it was: OK, I spent another 30 minutes before the session started printing some reference sheets and character sheets out, and counting 24 d10's in to a bag, but we launched the new saga, and I think it went very well. We started playing around 8pm, and Darkwing had to get his bus home at 10.30pm so we stopped about 10.25pm, but in that session we designed our covenant (bar books, which Darkwing will do tonight when he gets in) and four magi characters from scratch using a completely new to the players version of the system. I video'd bits of the session and am currently uploading it to YouTube, just to show it CAN be done and satisfy both newbies and hardcore (and Darkwing and Lloyd are pretty hardcore) Ars players...
