Wishlist: Ars Magica 6

You're not alone.

I did read that Europe's population had finally recovered to pre Black Plague levels by the beginning of the 16th century. So there is a massive die off and much of the population becomes concentrated in/around cities (where the average lifespan was less than 30 years in most cases). Politically, there are huge changes. Especially with the power of the Nobles vs the not nobles.

It would work for a completely new game setting where the Tremere and some other Houses could be removed. But I also like the 999 idea.

What I think it should have is ways to modify the effects and rules of a dominion aura to allow the underlying game mechanics to reflect different philosophies. For example, my entire gaming group is pagan, and the whole idea that a divine aura is monotheistic and trumps all other realms is one of the reason the group as a whole prefers GURPS. We play both, but allowing for different perspectives on these issues would certainly help. 25% of the US is not Christian, and basing the game rules on that religious perspective cannot be helping sales.

But it does evoke the setting.

I'm, generally, very happy with Ars Magica 5e so my list of fixes would mostly be confined to clarifications and patches.

  1. Would like to see stress die/botch system (or at least the description) revised so as to better distinguish between conditions that make a task more difficult and those that make the consequences of failure more onerous.

  2. While I don't necessarily agree with Erik Tyrell's assessment of the problems with confidence, I do think the system for gaining/increasing/spending Confidence could, perhaps, be handled better than it currently is.

  3. Possibly include a Technique/Universal guideline chart for wards, summons, might-strippers etc. I can't say for sure, but I suspect it would be a good way to include more spell guidelines without adding too much in the way of space. Also, some guidelines are odd or miss obvious spell ideas.

  4. While I too am happy with the 5e combat system, I do think more guidance on how it intersects with the magic system would be useful.

Well, that's all the major stuff. The rest of my complaints all circumstantial and so may not be relevant unless 6e retains the specific 5e mechanic that they apply to. (Example: Books for Accelerated Abilities/Difficult Arts having weirdly high/low qualities respectively).

It does. You may wince when i say this, but a Christian basis was a major selling point for me, and is why I originally convinced my friends to play back in the day. One of which being a pastor buddy with a vast collection of demon figurines for Warhammmer.
I am not in your group, but you are in mine :slight_smile:
However, I try to lay low on the Divine and Infernal. Theological debates and dogma are not fun.

I don't have a problem with a Christian societal basis, or allowing those who want to play a Christianized worldview to do so, simply allow options for those who don't. That or perhaps the game should be marketed on fundamentalist sites as a Christian roleplaying game, since that seems the direction it is headed... in which case it won't matter what you put in the 6th edition because nobody I know would buy it.

Yeah, I'd actually change the guideline for wards to just a fixed level for creatures of any Might, and let the MR/Penetration be what makes high-Might creatures harder to ward against. The way it is now, Might is "applied twice" (so to speak), once for the spell level needed to ward the creature and again for the MR you need to penetrate in order for the ward to have any effect on the creature.

I don't mean to come off as evangelizing or antagonizing, but belief in God is a central part of medieval life, and the game is set to mimic the middle ages as their inhabitants thought they were.

Please don't take this wrong, but being made uncomfortable by the prevalence of Christian beliefs in a 13th Century Europe setting feels similar to being made uncomfortable by the absence of such beliefs in, say, the Middle Earth.

Please let me put it another way, because I don't want to offend anyone and I would like to try to explain what I mean as congenially as I can. I'm personally an atheist, and from my very personal perspective the omnipotence of the Divine against everything else in Mythic Europe is not how reality really was in those times. Same thing with vermin spontaneusly appearing out of thin air, which is also true in Ars Magica. But I accept both, as it's only a game, and it's fun to make-believe how the world might have been if that'd been the case.

It's just a game, not real life. I wouldn't for the life of me want to live in the Middle Ages (nor anytime prior to penicilin, for that matter), but it's fun to pretend to live there while sitting around a table downing munchies and soda for a few hours.

And as a troupe, we simply don't use the parts of the setting which we prefer to be based on reality rather than the medieval paradigm.

Please let me state once again, since this is a religious subject and thus very sensitive, that I don't mean to be antagonizing or dismissive at all. Neither do I mean to be pro-Christian (nor anti-Christian) when I endorse the way the Divine Realm works in a game. I really hope I have not offended you. :slight_smile:

How dare you, you filthy atheist dog!!!XKCDLOLOMGTWFISGOINGON@DISPLACE

Nah, I think you said that well, Yirkash :slight_smile:

Silveroak, if you'd hear me out; due to thinking about the fact that God equally supports all faiths, an experiment I tried once was to have Divine auras be more "progression" auras. And it worked pretty well. Allow me to explain; although religion wasn't actually the cause of (m)any major technological advancements, the fact that people were becoming more and more religious and society was becoming more and more advanced means that people could easily come to the fallacious conclusion that the two must be interlinked, and it would make sense in paradigm. In other words, Divine auras are auras of progress away from current mythic life, towards even more heavy religiosity and decrying of magic. As such, it resists Magic because people are moving away from magic seeming like such an ingrained part of life; they're basically auras of overpowering mundanity that snuff out the supernatural influences that people are slowly beginning to take less stock in. Similarly with Faerie and the Infernal, people are on track to taking less stock in the supernatural, rather than spiritual, influence of demons and trickster faeries, resulting in the strong repulsion of those Realms inside the Divine aura. This works best if you houserule that the Divine does suffer penalties in non-Divine auras, as well as limiting the frequency of God's miracles.

Then your pagans could still reasonably argue that they're right, with everything being a bit less "[insert monotheism here] is actually right and your guys are all fakers."

Just something to think about.

Hmm I don't really have a problem with the way the dominion is handled in Ars Magica 5e, but do think the game's handling of pagan deities could, perhaps, be improved. It's not even so much a problem in the core setting, but it does make it more difficult to use Ars Magica to represent generic fantasy worlds and also presents an obstacle to expanding Ars Magica into realms like India or China where non-abrahamic religions dominate...

Here's the thing- while most people were certainly Christians, they also would swear "by Jove" (one of Jupiter's names), and paganism was far from extinct- especially in northern Europe. At the same time we are being told that pagan deities are all "false"- in that they are not divine and Christian saints are all real. Plus there is a caricaturation of paganism, reducing the complex philosophies regarding the nature of the divine into belief in simple characters. For example, Egyptian theology included the idea that deities could merge and separate to become other deities, to the point of the Heliopolis cult deciding that Helios (the sun) was the one true god and all others were aspects of him. Similar to what happened centuries later with Invectus Sol. In the case of Heliopolis the cult went to the desert to form its own community and died off, In the case of Invectus Sol the worship of other deities continued. There were also cases such as Socrates and Plato, where The Divine was referred to as something larger than the individual dieties.
But more fundamentally, what people believed at the time was not defined by the Church. In fact in the mid 13th century many people saw Fredrick II as being a hero for standing up to the church. Christianity was not the only philosophy on the playing field, but far to often in 5th ed it is the trump card that defines reality. The church says the world is 8000 years old (as opposed to later protestants who thought it was 6000) so obviously people living where they had physical evidence to the contrary such as Stonehenge must have just accepted that, right? No. In fact people disagreed with a great deal of church teachings, and even within the doctrine infallibility was only claimed on matters of faith. So could we allow for a bit more diversity in perspective? Honestly I went from 3rd to 5th edition and while there are parts of it I like the 5th edition seems oppressive by comparison.
Because the fact is that as it currently stands any pagans are effectively deluded, the same way rational aspected people in 3rd edition were. Because the world as defined by the rules simply cannot work the way they believe. To put yourself in my shoes imagine if you were playing in a version of Ars Magica where Christianity was actually infernal and the Old Gods were the true Gods but their power had been torn down by the evil Christians who had desecrated their temples and tortured and killed their servants. I do not believe that the current idea of going more towards Christian doctrine in any way enhances the authenticity of the game, and in fact it does seem like an attempt to convert the game into one which will appeal to a fundamentalist market. Just my opinion, but I really think at this point a diversity of opinion is needed, where one perspective has prevailed to thoroughly.

The fact is that Ars Magica is not based on how medieval people thought the world was. To begin with medieval people did not believe that magic was dying- that is a modern contrivance to explain how we would get from a fantasy world with magic to a modern world without. A world that works the way people in the middle ages believed it does does not lead to a modern world. Neither did they believe that civilization somehow destroyed magic. Indeed Byzantium was considered to be a magical city due to the mechanical contrivances which decorated it's streets to impress foreign dignitaries.
At the same time Christianity was far more fractured and divisive at the time- Eastern Orthodox was being attacked by the Latin Church following the 4th Crusade, they were also at war with the Cathars, who actually promoted the idea of God having evil aspects- the beliefs didn't suddenly spring from nowhere in an isolated community! Meanwhile the Irish Monastic system which had been the core of European education for a long time was being attacked with the help of the English, and it was established with tolerance and collaboration with Irish Druids.
Ultimately, however, the fundamental point is that this is a game, and the core question should be "is it fun", and having no options presented except that your faith in this world is delusional and wrong is not fun. I enjoy the magic system, I enjoy the character creation and the covenant management, the long term approach of the game. I do not enjoy being metaphorically being punched in the face. If there is to be a 6th edition, this must be fixed.

To those who have been arguing for the status quo, let me add this- your arguments thus far have added insult to injury rather than assuage my points, and in some cases has lessened my opinion of those making those points. Once again, I am not saying you shouldn't be allowed to play the game your way, I just want space to play it mine.

  1. It's kind of a small matter, but would be very good for our group. I would like to see a clarification of Creo in the basic description of creo so as to better describe what seems to be a use of CrHe, CrAn, or CrCo to mature a thing more quickly with the affect being permanent and not requiring vis. I have found no objective statement in the description of creo that explicitly allows for this. This has actually caused some rather long standing arguments in our group. Even an errata would due, really.

  2. At least one spell that uses CrCo to increase a physical characteristic.

  3. More clarification on exactly what you get when you use ReHe to make a wooden thing "move with purpose and intelligence."

  4. More on the effects that tainted vis (faerie, Infernal, and divine) can produce and also what effects, if any divinely tainted vis has on the casting of magic.

Not sure it's necessary. With CrHe and CrAn to mature something, they become mature adult versions of themselves. Why does it work? Well, I like to take the edge cases for where things are weird within the meta to be used by players to explore original research possibilities. Needs to be some mystery in the game, whether it's meta or otherwise. :smiley:

There isn't a CrCo spell to improve physical characteristics in the core text, but there is a CrMe spell to improve "mental" characteristics, Gift of Reason on page 148 of the core text. The spell construction works exactly the same way for CrCo as it does for CrMe. Houses of Hermes: True Lineages expands this and does have spells which increase physical characteristics, but it's strongly suggested that these lab texts are held by House Mercere and used in the Cult of Heroes. It is possible to create a spell which increases a characteristic by 1 point, for a duration other than momentary, just remember that you can't go past 50th level, as 55th level and above are automatically ritual spells.

Probably will never see it, but obeying simple commands, like go there or defend me, or perhaps some compound demands, go there and defend me, rather than go there and watch out for trouble. You'll never really see this well defined, though, because it's going to vary a lot from saga to saga.

The Realms of Power books do expand how how vis from different realms can be used and the effects, but I'm not in a position to look up the details and repost them here. In the core book, it's all pure concentrated magic magic, and can be used in the lab safely, with the exception of infernal vis. Infernal vis in the lab requires experimentation and as the SG, I'd roll the results, with discoveries leading down a path to Hell. Using all vis in the field, to boost spell casting is dangerous, IMO. Botches with rolls involving a kind of vis should be exemplary of their realm, a faerie vis botch should lead to the story, perhaps with the magus going to the faerie realm of Elysium to act out a story related to what he was doing. An infernal botch attracts the interests of a demon, obviously. A botch with divine vis attracts the interest of an angel, who begins finding out more about the magus and his motives, and questioning what he's doing with divine vis.

On botches, I'd generally like more guidance. I find some sagas where the botch dice fly like mad for just simple things, and when things get moved to a regio, it all goes to 12 (not 11, but 12!)... :smiley:

... Sorry, silveroak. I didn't mean to add any insult to your injury.

I haven't made enough impression on anyone on this site to have a Reputation. Have I just developed a negative one? :frowning:

Much of what is/was wrong with 3rd Edition, IMO, is trying to retcon it into the same world as Mage. But it's been 20 years since I looked at that book, and my 3rd Edition book is probably in a landfill, or in the hands of my ex, if she didn't throw it out. I think the Age of Reason stuff was nearly universally reviled. And there were lots of demons/infernal stuff, probably went to 11.

Hi,

I prefer past to future because the past is more rather than less different than the present. Quite a few big developments in Christianity have not yet occurred; also for Judaism, and Islam to a lesser extent. European boundaries are much different from today. Vikings! Iberia (your favorite :slight_smile:/894239742198565) is also very different, its fate less settled. I can go on.

But I definitely prefer 1444 to 1200 plus or minus a little. 1220 is a fine year, but after 5 editions, going to 1230 or 1190 is just more been there done that; going to 900 or 1000 or 1400 or 1600 allows splatbooks that are not very redundant; most of the AM sacred cows can be kept while offering a whole new game setting.

What's so special about 1444, btw?

grin Something I posted way back: Magi of the Caribbean, set in 17c....

Anyway,

Ken

Nothing special abut 1444. Just a random number with 4s :mrgreen:
I just have a desire for an ArMren style game.
The best years for Iberia, IMO, is the 11th century. Lots of fighting and cultural mixing. And El Cid :smiley:

Totally agreed.

AM1000+/- gets you that, btw. It's also a great time for Constantinople, England....