There are quite a few adventures in Sub Rosa...
Just sayin'. 
-Ben.
Also, the term "Hermetic Virtue" is now kind of borky, because it covers both "special abilities for a Hermetic magus" and "any Virtue that requires the Gift."
You know, having reviewed this thread as well as hitting other forums on just this subject, I have to ask the question if it isn't time for Ars to ditch the whole 'physics works the way they thought it did in the middle ages' thing. Because it seems to just be adding arguments and confusion to the game.
I'm okay with the notion that Hermetic magic (intellego especially) would let magi figure out how things actually work. Insects don't spontaneously generate, species don't transmit sensations, the four humors don't govern personal health, diseases are caused by viruses/bacteria, etcetera. This wouldn't necessarily change the setting's society much (because nobody trusts or believes Gifted magi and none of this is provable without magic or devices that are very hard to make without magic), but would make the game far more intelligible to the average gamer.
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I think the system is great but it is Historical Fiction. Someone must know some history of the period you are playing. I think that throws a lot of people. Then, at some point, you must deal with the middle ages mind set on why things happen. THat is a lot for people to get their head around. It is tricky to make characters and not quick. And, as someone said, instant gratification is lacking. No level ups. Lots of planning. I do not think it will ever grab a lot of people.
Admittedly, it can be something of a challenge to wrap one's head around how things work in Ars as compared to the real world, but I think you can still play the game with Newtonian physics...
I think it's the same problem Legend of the 5 Rings has with its testimony-based investigation that ignores hard evidence. People run into these things, which are - by modern standards - really stupid. This makes the game seem stupid as well.
If Ars Magica operated on the principle of "This is what middle ages philosophers thought - but Hermetic Magi know better!", then players wouldn't have to struggle with these things unless they're arguing with a mundane scholar on the nature of reality. The game wouldn't have to come up with kludgy explanations like 'a magically created image transmits totally natural species!'.
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I read the thread that Heaven's Thunder Hammer referenced. I pretty much reject out of hand anyone whose name is "Trollman." And the arguments he was presenting seemed, at best, superficial and petty. I've never believed that Spontaneous magic was a selling point of the system of Ars Magica. The selling point is probably the biggest challenge as well, in that it gives players enormous agency as to what they do. And that when I get tired of playing my magus or I want to advance him a bit, I play a companion or grogs for a while until my magus has bound his familiar, made a talisman, invented a few spells or enchanted an item, whatever.
Dragon attacking the covenant? Well, my character isn't plagued by this dragon (flaw), so it doesn't require that he involves himself in the story, someone else, perhaps the Defender of the covenant can get involved. Now I could choose to get involved, but this is my choice. Or it's my choice to play the grogs who will be sacrificed while the magus and the companions come up with the plan to defeat the dragon, but one of them gets really lucky and kills the dragon before they can implement the plan.
For the record, 'Trollman' means 'Wizard' or 'magician' in Norwegian.
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That sounded better in my head with sarcasm tags.
Just to take the other side for a moment...
One problem with saying that modern science is really correct in ME, is that you then have magi doing very modern things. Another is that magic and modern science combine in interesting and often undesirable ways.
For example, "I use CrTe to make 25kg of U235."
One simplifying approach that might work is that Bonisagus' theory competes with Plato and Aristotle. So Hermetic Magic does not have to obey medieval physics, and it also doesn't have to be modern.
I suspect there are a few reasons why ArM is niche. Pardon my repeating arguments made made times by various people in divers threads.
D&D is largely about mighty warriors, smart wizards, pious clerics, and sly thieves, fighting usually straight up fights against monsters. This image stamps many games, (for example, Call of Cthulhu - a tough guy, a jumpy scholar, a dedicated minister, and a sneaky burglar fight slimy horrors). It's pretty iconic. Ars Magica stays away from that. To be a super-thief, empowered "cleric" or mighty warrior, you (on the surface) have to "multi-class" as a magician-whatever.
Also, there are people who don't like magicians as characters. Not only from game experience (wimpy D&D wizards) but also because wizards are, in literature, often the bad guys. The wizard protagonist stands out against the background of everybody else.
On a deeper level, Mythic Europe is appealing to people who like history, and anything from problematic to repulsive to those who do not. This is aside from people who have a Hollywood history image. There are people who have a good understanding of Europe and find the people and events revolting. D&D settings tend to be egalitarian and clear-cut. You can tell the villains because they're sexist, racist, militant, and destructive.
On an even deeper level, magi come off as impotent. Like the Big Blue Genie says, "Vast cosmic power, itty-bitty living space." Despite the potential power of magi, they have no practical power. The Order seems to forbid virtually every kind of interaction with mundanes - that's something of an exaggeration, but the list of things the Order condones is short, while the list of crimes is long. This is intrinsic to Mythic Europe, though, and it won't change.
Ars Magica's public relations is not especially great, either. Atlas could do more to expand the base and get rid of ridiculous public images like the Pink Dot non-problem.
Hermetic magic could easily accelerate scientific discovery, even if it doesn't operate under scientific principles. As I mention in an earlier post, the non-magical society isn't likely to be affected much, as magical examinations of reality are difficult to duplicate without magic, and Gifted magi are unconvincing in person. Magi likely won't build advanced machinery based on physical principles because they can do the same thing with magic and less effort - a magical perpetual motion machine trumps a steam engine every time. It's another case of "Magi could change every aspect of society, but choose not to."
Here's another discussion on tgdmb about flexible magic systems. tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55387& ... sc&start=0
Ars Magica came up as a system. Again not totally on topic but since this board is composed of fans vs critics I think it is also more food for thought.
Another issue that has not been brought up is the troupe style of play - multiple characters is very weird to most rpg players.
It is not obvious from the rules which characters should be created with which priority. For new players - Virtue and Flaw selection alone for Magi and Companion characters can take hours. Art and Spell selection for Magi can take hours.
I know a guy who tried to start an ars magica game. After two sessions and 12 hours his group threw in the towel and moved on to another system. The core book does not really explain what you should initially do to start the game. This same guy after playing with me just have the players create magi for an already existing covenant instead of a spring covenant gave it another go with his group and has been much more successful.
Well, Ars doesn't really have any advice for laddering in. And the members of the community have varying opinions as to how to introduce new players to the system. It's even more challenging when the new players are being introduced to Ars by a new SG. Ars is huge it is complex, and there are numerous areas that tend to be house ruled. Wards and (the Aegis, too) and penetration is a classic example of an argument that has been often had on the forum, but the new SG won't have any understanding of the issue, or how deciding whether Wards and the Aegis needing to penetrate modifies his game...
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Hmm. Maybe I should elaborate. As soon as we declare that modern physics are real, the player with the most knowledge can explain how all sorts of cool things can be done. Fusion? I have a spell for containment. A cubic foot of neutronium can ruin anyone's day. A cloud of plutunium oxide... just an Ind, highly unnatural... Oh, heck, just an Ind-worth of fluorine. A MuTe to change the ground beneath your feet to lithium... Hee hee. Perpetual motion machines, yum, yum. ReTe to create a supervirus. We can have entire threads about this, and I'd mostly have to be a bystander because my knowledge ain't so great.
That might be an interesting campaign, but almost no one is qualified to run it. It also isn't really my idea of a Europe in which the folklore is true, or true to a great degree.
Related: xkcd.com/965/
But yeah. I like the peculiar paradigm of Mythic Europe. It's interesting and helps you get into character and fit your head around stuff when you grok the paradigm, and it also provides room for breakthroughs that can change humanity's understanding of the Mythic world.
It's a world where theology is hard science. That's awesome.
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Are you kidding me? I game with a guy who was seriously considering building an anti-matter containment device IRL (not much antimatter, sort of a 'positron in a can' novelty). There's not end to the shenanegans a knowledgeable person could get to if they could use magic to manipulate real world physics.
But at the same time, how is that any more dangerous than someone who can kill you just by looking at you with PeCo? Just set the base level for a nuclear explosion pretty high and it's no worse than any other ritual doom spell. City destroying rituals aren't beyond even middle aged magi.
But guidelines already exist for making things that give you nuclear explosions - and they're not that hard.
Uranium is little more than an expensive metal. Argueably, that'd be a base metal, since it's note one of the classic 'Noble Metals'.
Or if we go by price (which would be rather nebulous in 1220), a precious metal.
Then compare to the Touch of Midas (CrTe20). A block of pure U-235 that size would be ... slightly more than the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, off the top of my head.
that's CrTe 20. You don't even need to be a dedicated CrTe expert here, just decently skilled.
All of this implies knowledge of things that simply did not exist in the 13C. You're conflating player knowledge with character knowledge.
Keeping the physics and knowledge base in line with the period means you get a more authentically medieval game.
But hey, if you want to go more high fantasy, then that's cool, nothing stops you from doing that.
Personally, as someone who's run Ars at conventions, who's tried evangelizing in his local community, and who's brought new players into the fold, the toughest part I've found for new players has been the scope, but they grow into it. Yes, the history can be daunting, but that's the storyguide's choice on what to include and what level to pursue. The setting, with the Houses, the nobility, the Church, the Fae, the Divine, the Infernal, Titans, genius loci, peasantry, it's all pretty massive at the start, and that seems to overwhelm people more than anything. The magic system can take a little bit longer to master, but with a few encounters, I've found players start to get the hang of things quite well. Troupe style can be a blast, and means we have fewer missed sessions, since we can bounce between GMs. Once I explain to players how the style gives them the chance to develop a whole stable of different characters while advancing or adventuring with a bunch of them, they get into it. I've had die-hard Pathfinder Society players finish a session and then ask me where they can get the books, and when can we play online.
The rules are loose on purpose. Troupe discussion is part of the game's heritage. YSMV. That's part and parcel of the game, that rulings should be discussed to the consensus of the group. Personally, we tend to limit adventures to two magi, because scaling challenges to 5 magi is hard, and because we have threats near the covenant which we don't wish to leave unchallenged. That's not in the rules anywhere, but we've imposed it.
More than anything, I think the groundbreaking aspects of Ars Magica-- the multiple characters-per-player, the troupe style play, the covenant as a shared character, the long-term playstyle across seasons and years, these things break the paradigm of most other RPGs (like D&D) and cause new players the most trouble. When those very different aspects are combined with history (which can be intimidating to people anyway, because, well, history) then you have a game where evangelizing and outreach from within the community is the best tool we have.
So I say this-- go run Ars Magica at a convention. Get people playing. Run your session at a game store, invite strangers to play grogs for (part of) the session. Show them all the cool aspects and ease them into the freedom of the system and its longevity. We are the best option for expanding the awareness of Ars Magica, because we are going to be its strongest advocates.
-Ben.