I wholeheartedly agree. I was only saying that if you port flexible magic, long-term advancement, and troupe play into a different setting, you still have the features that make ArM unique. If you change the system and keep the setting, it is just another historical RPG (as @silveroak pointed out before I did).
I picked up 2nd ed the first edition of Ars Magica I ever heard of or saw. Back then is was significantly different than the D&D, MERP and Call of Cthulhu we otherwise played. Thise games weren't much more user friendly.
I think 2nd ed wasn't that hard to start out with, several things were simpler in that edition. Sure, a lot of mechanics are better now, and a lot of the setting is more well defined, but 2nd had a beatiful simplicity - I see that now. It had an insert box for quick-built grogs, with a random roll for age, a few V&Fs to choose from, and that was it.
I've played quite a few systems, and settings, and I've found most games to have incomplete and somewhat ambiguous rules. No rule system can cover EVERYTHING, and so every table makes their own houserules, and that's fine.
While I don't usually like generic systems, there's one generic system I do enjoy, because it grants players a more narrative power, and that is Genesys, where I am converting Legend of the Five Rings, based on it's 4e mostly, to that system.
I agree, to a point. We did not pick up ArM until 3ed, and that was after playing Vampire. In fact, when I took up roleplaying, I played with people who had already transitioned from the mechanical and tactical game into a much more narrative style. This probably made ArM3 even less daunting.
However, the ArM we played was not the ArM we know in the community 20-25 years later. We never got the hang of fast-forwarding seasons and years. The books, even then, did not convey sufficient clues to how a long-term story can be narrated. On this point 5ed is a little better, I think, with xp per season and not per story, and suggesting a rate of time.
On another point, 5ed and its community, has made things a lot worse. ArM3 did not have that many supplements, and most were adventures and settings. Playing the game with core rules only was natural and gratifying. ArM5 is full of supplementary rulesets, and a newbie cannot really ask for help running a core-only game, without being pointed to some obscure ruleset.
Sure. But that was not what I was talking about.
In other games I have played, we leaf quickly through the core rule, find that it does not cover the situation, quickly discuss solutions, pick one, and move on.
In Ars Magica, we get into a highly academic interpretation of texts, cross referencing multiple supplements, run a number of thought experiments to check for undesiered consequences, and the conclusion is never reached in session.
That could well be partly because those drawn to this game and to ST it tend to be more academically-minded, or simply because there may be references that are scattered around, but that later part can happen in other games as well.
One other reason for this, is the troupe style, so players are expected to read more of the game books, and to run adventures themselves, and so they become "rules-lawyers" to greater degree than in other games.
True, there is more than one reason, but rules being scattered is a problem which could have been solved.
The comparison to 3ed is still interesting. In 3ed, we had the core book. If we did not find it in the core book, we made it up. The umpteen supplements to scrutinise did not exist. Since the spell guidelines did not exist, there was a lot of maing up. In 5ed we expect a lot more canon decisions, and those decisions are scattered. This makes the discussion much more complex, with a lot more viewpoints to consider.
There is no doubt that 5ed is more mature than 3ed, but this maturity is rather demanding on players and SGs...
That is a problem that comes with every game that has supplements for it, because more supplements, means more rules have been created, and that means they are spread out.
I remember when I ran D&D 2nd and 3rd editions, the more rulebooks there were, the harder it was to keep track. But there, the one thing that helped, was that players usually had less access to those books, so the demand to know those rules was lesser, and i could stick to whatever books I could physically carry to the game.
Now, when everything is easier for the players to get, and in Ars Magica because they are also expected to be Storytellers, it's harder to avoid that.
Well, I have seen supplements in other systems without their creating this much confusion, but you are right. I am not familiar with DnD. The only thing I know is that TSR (?) was known to print more than anyone could reasonably afford to buy.
The supplements I have seen have been more clearly optional and special purpose. When ArM supplements come across as essential, it probably has more to do with the community than with the editors.
Apparent inconsistencies, however, is down to the editors, and a problem I have never seen to the same scale as in ArM. It has its charm, but it is certainly not the way to attract new players.
If definitely has more to do with the community than the editors.
None of the ArM supplements are essential. Not a single one. The core rulebook contains everything needed to play. Many of the supplements are highly useful, but that's a very different thing from them being necessary.
(Alright, there is one exception. Stats for mundane animals really should have been in the core rulebook, but that is the only thing from the supplements that is needed for normal play.)
Some of you had backpacks too small to give you back problems and it shows.
LOL, I usually carried some 5-6 books at the very least. The back problems started later in life...
That's true. There is a lot of stuff that's Nice To hve, but core core book is all you Need To Have.
I remember when I first bought the 5th ed book. We came out of years and years of 4th ed sagas, and we really just had the core book, Houses of Hermes (or was it Order of Hermes - I forget which one is for 4th ed) plus Wizard's Grimoire Revised. Those two books were really just Nice To Have.
The one thing in 5th ed - with onlæy the core book - which puzzled me a bit, was the short section on the Mystery Cult Houses. We could easily have worked stuff out ourselves, but we never got around to playing before I had all the House books plus some Realms of Power. The chamberpots got a lot more nailed down with those. But still Nice.
I agree. I'm not sure if they do now either.
Also something I very much agree with. I told my players to please stick to core+relevant house books only for our saga, because I find that the realm books add rapidly to the complexity without necessarily making things better. Rolling each season for the covenant's aura to see what minor thing happens... pretty much put me off the RoP:M right away.
I found that the mundane world ones (C&G in particular) to be very very helpful with charts for rough costs, travel etc Like when my players asked me "how much would it cost to build houses in the Covenant (or buying armours)? What if I use Re or Mu Te magic to help preparing the starting materials?" That this information is split about 50:50 between C&G and Covenants is kind of a pain (luckily people on Discord can generally answer quickly where to look).
I also feel that core book only gives too little info on the mage houses, Hermetic culture and the Code, and worst of all, not enough info on how to run a saga.
I mentioned this in a previous thread, but I think that the core book should be split into two slightly longer books, in order to be actually enough to get things started alone:
- A first one with all the rules for mundanes, as well as the key info from C&G and Covenants on how mundane life (costs for things, travel times), stats for animals and how to make them (from Bjornaer), as well as a more extensive chapter on how to run a saga.
- And a second one with all the rules for mages, as well as the central information on the Order (the whole Code part from the Guernicus chapter, the research from the Bonisagus chapter...)
While that solutions works for some, it is going to put others off.
I did, once, start a mundane only saga. It was 4ed, and a city story in Provence, Narbonne I think. Most, if not all, of the players were new to roleplaying, and we made characters together with little individual study. We enjoyed it.
I have played with other groups who think all time spent with grogs is wasted. ArM is a game for the magic, so you should get started with the magic ASAP.
The one thing I agree on though, is that splitting the core book is a good idea. The challenge is that it only helps if you can start running a story off volume 1. I certainly do not want price lists and animal stats for the first story. I love the way ArM abstracts money out of the game, and I rarely use animals at all. A 3/4ed style Bestiary with the additional custom animal rules from Bjornar would be great, as volume 3 or 4 or beyond.
I am rather torn about the need for magic in Volume 1, but that Volume 1 has to promote some kind of stories which do not require Volume 2 and which players want to play. If magic is not part of it, the mundane rules need to be improved.
The fact is that compared to D&D Ars Magica has a pretty decent core combat system- the cumulative injuries over a simply hit point system is, IMO genius. All it would need is a bit of expansion- rules for being under cover to begin with maybe something to cover the backstab/surprise attack element a bit better. Personally I have some thoughts for interesting improvements to the initiative system but I don't know how well they would sell (allowing the occasional double action before someone else goes).
Setting wise having a setting where MR is more common (not to replace the current setting) would allow more diversity in character types, but the one thing that would need to change the most to allow it to become generic are the social and realm rules, which are tied pretty heavilly to a single cosmology- realms as a general concept can be reskinned/renamed and reassigned and simply allow every setting to have its own realm interaction chart and perhaps some general guidelines for adding and subtracting of other realms. Social Virtues and flaws would be the bulk of the rework. Then some details could be added like vehicular combat, higher technology weaponry, and of course we can keep adding from there...
It might not have the impact of D20 given that it is a smaller system at this point and second to market but it could at least compete with Chaosium's BRP system.
The animal stats are , I think pretty important. The first enemies likely to be battled by fresh magi are the [supernatural] animals living in the auras that they will want to appropriate, both as their Covenant or as Vis sources nearby. A simple template like [elemental] (gain MR 10-15, a trait, and a spell like ability based on the element) which could be added to any animal would make it easy to have like an Earth bull (or whatever in line with one of the party magi's focus) for the PCs to fight early on, get some vis, get a grip on combat etc As it stands, the 4 wolves at the end of the book are fairly high power and not something I would have as an appetiser for starting players.
So while I would not send my players on the deer hunt (using the full lord of men rules), having animal stats as the core for easily stated enemies is something that I found useful (thanks to @Red-Shadow-Claws 's animal compendium).
One advantage of having two books is (if the pandemic ever ends) that when at the table, some players could be checking either half at any one time, rather than having to pass the single book around.
I understand that, it's definitely something worth discussing with the party at the start of the saga. I see a split between mundane and Hermetic in the core books mostly for internal coherence of the topics within each book.
I don't. I find that it is very much caught between the say, exalted, system, where you have ressource X and you can automatically have whatever you want that costs less than X (which I dislike) and the granularity of the Covenants book where you are counting every expenditure of the Covenant, as you calculate how much economic synergy your carpenter and wheelwright have (too granular for my taste). now it also depends on what feeling the saga should have, if the players just turn 4 vis of Te into gold, then they can largely ignore financials. But if scarcity is at all to be a theme in the saga, then it becomes less clear cut.
I think that vol 1 and 2 should come in the same bundle. Vol1 would just be core mundane rules and Vol1' would be core (hermetic) magic rules. Much as DnD has both the monster's manual and a player's handbook.
I also think that a Storyteller's handbook would make sense for ArM, which would give a lot more info on how to run a saga but that would very much push people towards the fixed ST over the other types of play that ArM supports, the merits of which can certainly be debated.
Am happy my work has helped other people's games.
A book on how to run a saga would indeed be useful - but that is something that would be useful for a LOT of other RPGs as well. For practically all of them. For other games you may find some half-baked advice on how to create an adventure, but rarely if ever anything detailed on how to create and run a campaign.
So lack of information on how to run a saga is not what makes ArM obscure - because the competition doesn't have it either.
How would you handle money in a meaningful way?
Covenants finances can be daunting, and the system is not particularly good, but it is reasonably fair with respect to long term finances, where costs are counted in pounds.
Given that you play the long game, running a covenant with an annual turn-over of about £100, and you play, on-stage, at most a couple of days' worth of expenditure every season, there are very few expenditures you can make that has any impact. Anything less than a pound is lost in rounding errors ...
I have tried to run a little game of EDD and now DnD with my son some friends of ours, and I see some start quibbling over trivial costs. I find it truly boring and pointless.
But who knows, maybe there is a better solution of which I am not aware!?