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Ideas for Future Games.

Posted by Discussion HostFor group 0
Sir Swindle
player, 3 posts
Tue 2 Apr 2019
at 10:53
  • msg #153

Re: Ideas for Future Games

So there is in-universe precedent for magic immune fire eating monsters that live on the moon.

Two words.

Lunar Saga.
Andrewmoreton
player, 3 posts
Sat 8 Jun 2019
at 21:28
  • msg #154

Re: Ideas for Future Games

This is the series of questions I intend to work through with prospective players to help define the covenant
Covenant Age
Spring Covenant with only beginning magi and resources
Winter covenant with most of the old magi dead and new magi trying to reinvigorate the covenant.

Relationship with the Bjornear
The Domnus Magnus of House Bjornear is on a large Baltic island and is the dominant covenant in the area, although you will be in the Novograd tribunal

Relationship with the Church
The old pagan religion and tribes of the area are facing pressure from both the christian russians and a crusade lead by several minor knightly orders which are slowly being subsumed by the Teutonic knights

Relationship with House Tremere
While not specifically strong in this area House Tremere is known to have some sort of relationship with the Teutonic knights as they have large holdings around the Tremere Domnus Magnus although these holdings are growing less important.
Kilgs
player, 1 post
Thu 8 Aug 2019
at 14:22
  • msg #155

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Galley Slave:
I guess I might take that as resounding 'Maybe'   ;-P

Either way, I have set up a new game:   link to another game

I've created for myself a Covenant, and a Character, that I think I'd like to play, and as the weeks progress, I'll be beginning to write Maro's story.

If anyone else is interested in joining me there, please let me know.
You can base yourself out of the same Covenant, if you like, or create your own.

Long delayed but I recommend this idea... I ended up building the Ars Harnica (Harn+Ars Magica) Order from two-three hundred years in the past and focused on the major covenants. The Order was much smaller so it was easier.

With that and Metacreator, I went hogwild for an entire winter and learned more about Ars Magica's mechanics than I ever would have just playing/GMing it. I built some crazy stuff... and had a ton of fun.

[It was a long winter so it's not like I had anything else to do... ;-)]
Galley Slave
player, 32 posts
Young, attractive, wealth
... and full of BS!
Thu 8 Aug 2019
at 14:33
  • msg #156

Re: Ideas for Future Games

I am glad for you, Kilgs.
Lord, I wish I had that sort of time on my hands; but between working and family, I have nothing to complain about.

That game went nowhere.   The few who joined in didn’t contribute much.
The game is now dead and delete.
Kilgs
player, 2 posts
Sat 10 Aug 2019
at 17:22
  • msg #157

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Metacreator speeds things right along!
Kilgs
player, 3 posts
Sun 11 Aug 2019
at 06:42
  • msg #158

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Hey Galley,

I looked over those rules from your game and the original ones; they're pretty slick. Years back, I put together a troupe-style system that was similar but less detailed to use in a similar fashion here on Rpol. After reading those other rules, I went back and started monkeying around with merging the two since I like your base mechanics better but keeping a few things from mine.

Give me a week and I'll show you what I've got. I think there is some interesting potential here.
Plot_device
player, 2 posts
Mon 26 Aug 2019
at 21:31
  • msg #159

Re: Ideas for Future Games

What do people think of this for a saga?

The group is Quaesitores, Hoplites, and support (ie one or two lab-focused magi that want to help but take a back seat when it comes to direct confrontations.)  All early summer magi, 20-25 past gauntlet.   The first story is to recover the Flying Castle of Thomae, refurbish it, and add modifications so that it is invisible or in some other way not noticeable by mundanes, and it becomes a mobile base for the group. Then, the saga is a series of vignettes, people taking turns running mysteries, marches, etc.  Possibly, but not necessarily, with a larger cataclysmic plot or plots happening in the background.
Pnvq12
player, 39 posts
Mon 26 Aug 2019
at 22:17
  • msg #160

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Definitely sounds interesting. Were you imagining a rotating Storyteller for the vignettes?
Plot_device
player, 3 posts
Mon 26 Aug 2019
at 22:35
  • msg #161

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Exactly. Probably a main SG to get things started, set the pace, and do backdrop stories, then everyone else takes turns with the vignettes.
Pnvq12
player, 40 posts
Mon 26 Aug 2019
at 22:38
  • msg #162

Re: Ideas for Future Games

I could get behind that. I have enough experience at this point to carry my own in a game; just don't have the time to be the sole ST of my own. Ideally splitting the load should help with GM burnout.
Galley Slave
player, 33 posts
Young, attractive, wealth
... and full of BS!
Tue 27 Aug 2019
at 06:58
  • msg #163

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Kilgs:
I looked over those rules from your game and the original ones; they're pretty slick. Years back, I put together a troupe-style system that was similar but less detailed to use in a similar fashion here on Rpol. After reading those other rules, I went back and started monkeying around with merging the two since I like your base mechanics better but keeping a few things from mine.

Give me ... some time ... and I'll show you what I've got. I think there is some interesting potential here.

Thank you, and I’d be muchly interested to see your stuff.   It’ll likely excite my creative juices further, and we may end up collaborating further, eh!
Galley Slave
player, 34 posts
Young, attractive, wealth
... and full of BS!
Tue 27 Aug 2019
at 07:15
  • msg #164

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Plot_device:
What do people think of this for a saga?

The group is Quaesitores, Hoplites, and support (ie one or two lab-focused magi that want to help but take a back seat when it comes to direct confrontations.)  All early summer magi, 20-25 past gauntlet.   The first story is to recover the Flying Castle of Thomae, refurbish it, and add modifications so that it is invisible or in some other way not noticeable by mundanes, and it becomes a mobile base for the group. Then, the saga is a series of vignettes, people taking turns running mysteries, marches, etc.  Possibly, but not necessarily, with a larger cataclysmic plot or plots happening in the background.

I’d support that, also.   I’m certainly no rules expert, but I have narrative flair.
unnameable
player, 1 post
Tue 27 Aug 2019
at 15:39
  • msg #165

Re: Ideas for Future Games

The idea of a quaesitor/hoplite game is a sound one, and allows a good range of stories. Even 20 years past gauntlet is enough for investigative magi to have the spells to make working out "whodunit?" easy enough, proving why and how it can be proven to others and what the best of way of handling the complications is the real challenge.
 I like the supporting magi - "This is Quirinius of Verditius, but you can call him 'Q'. He'll show you your equipment, agent."
Sir Swindle
player, 7 posts
Fri 11 Sep 2020
at 12:12
  • msg #166

Re: Ideas for Future Games

I love in the US and we have a lot of places that start with 'New' and we have no idea where the OG version of that place is. I looked up where regular Jersey is and thought it would make a decent covenant location. Given it's modern political weirdness. Maybe a story line about it being in either Normandy or Stonehenge.

I also keep seeing the Adult game Crooked Mile and think that a stretch of road that can pop you into a regio would make a decent setting for an adventure or a covenant.
Dr. Mindermast
player, 10 posts
Sun 13 Sep 2020
at 00:21
  • msg #167

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Sir Swindle:
I also keep seeing the Adult game Crooked Mile and think that a stretch of road that can pop you into a regio would make a decent setting for an adventure or a covenant.


Feels very fae-flavored.  Could be a Merinita stronghold, or maybe a lost covenant that fell after making the wrong pact.  I like it.

No ideas about Jersey, but now I'm wondering if there's a way to use sympathetic magic between locations that share the same name (like the dozen or so Springfields in the US).
Sir Swindle
player, 8 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 20:06
  • msg #168

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Lunar covenant.

-You can't use magic beyond the Lunar Sphere but you can use it just inside of it.
-You can't teleport to the moon because the visual species you would be using originate from beyond the Lunar Sphere.

*Problem: How (other than the threat that they can't get back) do you get players to not pop all over the world to places you aren't prepared for. They can see the whole earth from the moon and terrestrial species work just fine for sight range teleportation.

Looking for mechanical reasons, contrivances, or Story Guide techniques.
Andrewmoreton
player, 4 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 20:14
  • msg #169

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Off the top of my head
Sight is limited to what you can see. Look at photo's taken from the Apollo missions of Earth any teleport is going to be lucky to hit the right country.
And yes the Moon is that far away the distance was measured to a very close approximation in antiquity.
Next how much of the rest of the world as we know it is real and habitable, the Medieval and Classical scholars had some very strange ideas of the rest of the world. So if they go near China they encounter the legendary monstrous mongols , if they go near the Equator there is a band of death from the sun being too hot along the equator (there is a 2nd or 3rd edition supplement called south of the sun which gives a vision of the south of africa.

The America's may well not exist at all.

Really though get the players buy in to only go where you want them to or somewhere they give advance warning of
Sir Swindle
player, 9 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 20:19
  • msg #170

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Andrewmoreton:
Off the top of my head
Sight is limited to what you can see. Look at photo's taken from the Apollo missions of Earth any teleport is going to be lucky to hit the right country.
And yes the Moon is that far away the distance was measured to a very close approximation in antiquity.
Next how much of the rest of the world as we know it is real and habitable, the Medieval and Classical scholars had some very strange ideas of the rest of the world. So if they go near China they encounter the legendary monstrous mongols , if they go near the Equator there is a band of death from the sun being too hot along the equator (there is a 2nd or 3rd edition supplement called south of the sun which gives a vision of the south of africa.

The America's may well not exist at all.

Really though get the players buy in to only go where you want them to or somewhere they give advance warning of

Sight is magicable.

Seems cheesy to basically say that the rest of the world is empty or too dangerous to venture to.
Andrewmoreton
player, 5 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 21:20
  • msg #171

Re: Ideas for Future Games

If you find the viewpoint of medieval scholars cheesy.....

Sight is not magicable, the limit seems pretty much to be sight of the eagles and that is worthless from the moon. Telescopes capable of resolving anything at that distance are centuries and changes in the world view away.

Not all the world will be empty but from the viewpoint of Medieval Europe Asia and India are exotic and far away places full of monsters.  You could go with the historical version but that is a huge amount of research and inventing whole new systems of magic and of course deciding how their different world views collide with the Ars Magica medieval europe construct a task worthy of a mjor publication of multiple books.

As America and Australia are unknown I would jsut ignore them, and are knowledge of them is limited. If you are sensitive to the possinility of offending people you are going to have to tread on eggshells as what I have seen of central american cultures inclines me to believing them to be infernally dominated in the ars magica context. The settled culture of North America largely died of plague before anything was recorded about them so that's another minefield. Again to do something accurate would be a great work of scholarship.

Me I would go with you can only get to places which I am ready for you to got to. I would hate to develop China and have them go to India. As being on the moon is already beyond hermetic limits I would jsut impose flaws on whatever their breakthrough is and control it that way. Access only by the Faerie or Magical realm works, no teleportation there.

Also IIRC teleportation is largely not teleportation as modern thinking goes but rapid motion between two points which smacks you into the Lunar sphere so if you don't want it justifying its failure is easy.

Decide what you want players to be able to do then decide how to impose those limits
Sir Swindle
player, 10 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 22:03
  • msg #172

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Andrewmoreton:
Sight is not magicable,

He says with way too much conviction for a highly debated topic.

Andrewmoreton:
the limit seems pretty much to be sight of the eagles and that is worthless from the moon. Telescopes capable of resolving anything at that distance are centuries and changes in the world view away.


Eyes of the Eagle is a metaphor. It's not MuCo(An). It takes species from over there and brings them to you. Weakening it slightly from canon wouldn't be so bad but it you have a teleport at that level then being close is usually good enough.

Andrewmoreton:
Not all the world will be empty but from the viewpoint of Medieval Europe Asia and India are exotic and far away places full of monsters.  You could go with the historical version but that is a huge amount of research and inventing whole new systems of magic and of course deciding how their different world views collide with the Ars Magica medieval europe construct a task worthy of a mjor publication of multiple books.

As America and Australia are unknown I would jsut ignore them, and are knowledge of them is limited. If you are sensitive to the possinility of offending people you are going to have to tread on eggshells as what I have seen of central american cultures inclines me to believing them to be infernally dominated in the ars magica context. The settled culture of North America largely died of plague before anything was recorded about them so that's another minefield. Again to do something accurate would be a great work of scholarship.

It's mostly that whatever is there. Be it normal geography or 3 other versions of eurasia and africa. Players would immediately look down and see them and wonder what is there.

Andrewmoreton:
Me I would go with you can only get to places which I am ready for you to got to. I would hate to develop China and have them go to India. As being on the moon is already beyond hermetic limits I would jsut impose flaws on whatever their breakthrough is and control it that way. Access only by the Faerie or Magical realm works, no teleportation there.

I see no reason anyone would need a break through to get to and stay on the moon. It defines the lunar sphere it's not beyond it.

Changing that interpretation would be a possibility. But it makes things a lot harder logistically.

Andrewmoreton:
Also IIRC teleportation is largely not teleportation as modern thinking goes but rapid motion between two points which smacks you into the Lunar sphere so if you don't want it justifying its failure is easy.

Teleportation works sort of however your table agrees it does.

By A&A it is like going in and changing the XYZ position coordinate of the target to something else. How that resolves is mostly flavor.
Andrewmoreton
player, 6 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 22:21
  • msg #173

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Canonically effecting the material of the moon with magic requires a major hermetic breakthrough. This breakthrough is detailed in Dies Irea and using it can break the world if you are crazy in its application.

Also mentioned in Dies Irae is the Daimon which personifies the moon, and there are a whole bunch of other legendary beings which are tied to the moon you could do a lot with them to describe the nature of the moon and use them to impose limits on magic to access it. Artemis and Hecate spring to mind but there are almost certainly similar beings in other religions

There was also something cut from the 4th Ed sourcebook on the Greater Alps tribunal on the covenant dedicated to trying to break the Lunar limit, its out of date now but it was published on one of the authors websites. I am sorry I can't remember which one.



And everything is up to the SG with whatever level of discussion works for the group. I Was trying to present obstables to the problems you posed with the idea of a saga with a covenant on the moon sorry if they are not useful. I personally would never run a game with this concept as it does not fit with my mental image of Ars Magica but I can see how it could be fun.
Sir Swindle
player, 11 posts
Wed 14 Oct 2020
at 22:26
  • msg #174

Re: Ideas for Future Games

quote:
Canonically effecting the material of the moon with magic requires a major hermetic breakthrough


100% correct, that is part of the fun. But that has nothing to do with getting there and hanging a castle from it. To get there you just need air, a spell to lift you, and really good fire immunity.

You certainly can't go anywhere during the day since you would have to get through that blanket of blue fire.
witchdoctor
GM, 34 posts
Thu 15 Oct 2020
at 01:54
  • msg #175

Re: Ideas for Future Games

Andrewmoreton:
As America and Australia are unknown I would jsut ignore them, and are knowledge of them is limited. If you are sensitive to the possinility of offending people you are going to have to tread on eggshells as what I have seen of central american cultures inclines me to believing them to be infernally dominated in the ars magica context. The settled culture of North America largely died of plague before anything was recorded about them so that's another minefield. Again to do something accurate would be a great work of scholarship.


  The second edition supplement Ice & Fire details Iceland and parts of Greenland and perhaps the northeastern coast of North America.  The vikings ranged into those areas in the recent past of the Ars Magica setting so it isn't too far fetched for sagas ranging towards the ends of the earth...  I've seen ideas kicked around for such games on here but the level of world building for it would be staggering, really quite esoteric as far as solid research goes and likely run afoul of misconceptions/misrepresentations about Native cultures.  (As in the Incan reference above...)
Sir Swindle
player, 12 posts
Thu 15 Oct 2020
at 02:18
  • msg #176

Re: Ideas for Future Games

I think his real point there wasn't that they wouldn't exist. But that you should probably play game with your real life friends that won't judge you for making the region an entertaining and compelling but ultimately inaccurate caricature of the real region.
Andrewmoreton
player, 7 posts
Thu 15 Oct 2020
at 10:27
  • msg #177

Re: Ideas for Future Games

In a game on this site where I do not know the players I will have to be much more culturally sensitive than I would be with my local group , there I have known the players for twenty years and so can guarantee to stay in their comfort zone.

Even with the best documented ancient and medieval cultures there is a lot we don't know and a lot where interpretation is required. Pre-Columbian Meso-american culture is one of those poorly documented area's worse even than Post-Roman Britain or Pre-Roman Britain
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