If I'm right, not just being an active character looking for adventures, but being an active player suggesting adventures based on character flaws, covenant hooks, and campaign events. Plus potentially suggesting something cool that could happen.

Yes, Shadowsmith. Active players. The characters could theoretically be cantankerous hermits, but they should still have reasons to get involved in intrigues.

Do people in most games not do that? I thought that was the whole point of Flaws.

People in most games passive-aggressively do nothing and expect the GM to cater to them.

Not that I can really blame people; it's human nature to do as little work as possible. =P

Well, Ascended, when/if you do something, count me in on all counts, especially with plot hooks.  :)

It would be an interesting Saga with player-driven plotlines.  Would you follow all the plots the players produce or be selective about the ones that get to move forward?

In reply to longesway (msg # 55):

I might comment that in a very different sort of game -- a Regency romance sort of setting -- I had a great deal of fun (as a player)introducing -- with the consent of the DM -an outrageous villain who went abut trying to seduce the heroine, frame the heroes for shameful deeds, force them into duels, cheat them at horse races etc. He really livened up the campaign.

They don't need to be huge ideas. "Smaller" ones are probably more useful. For example, a useful idea could be a minor NPC or a dilemma that plays off of the traits and quirks of a particular PC. E.g., a cantankerous magus sabotaging a PC's proposal at Tribunal because the PC's familiar is one that the NPC wanted in the past.

I doubt I would have time to explore all of them. The most likely situation, I think, would be that I would pick the ideas from the players that I felt went well together.

So I've been tossing around an idea for a campaign that may (or may not ever) get off the ground, and I'd like some sanity checks on the premise and the execution.

A powerful covenant in the old viking territories, secluded from much (if not necessarily all) of the politics in the tribunal by the weight of distance and the general poor footing of the Order in general, has ceased sending representatives to tribunal conclaves.  Investigation reveals that the magi have vanished, the covenfolk have retreated to the countryside once again, and the site is overgrown as if it's been abandoned for years, perhaps even decades -- but many of the covenant's magical defenses are still active, in defiance of common sense.  While the tribunal is considering their options on how to deal with this, enterprising PC-types -- local, or who hear the news from afar and conspire -- manage to finagle a claim as the new residents of the tribunal.  They move in to the site, attract most of the covenfolk back to working beneath their auspices, and set up shop trying to unravel the mysteries of the abandoned covenant between their own studies.  The subsequent campaign sees the magi spending their time alternately trying to unlock the secrets of the previous residents, re-establishing the covenant as the power it once was, and dealing with the local powers (mortal and otherwise) who were never tremendously happy in the first place with nosy magi settling in their back yard.

The current group I'm thinking of running this for is the usual 30+ crowd -- we meet maybe a time or two a month and can't guarantee that everyone will be about, so if I were to run this for them, it would be fairly episodic.  The troupe play option (everyone produces one mage and one companion and they decide who's going on a given adventure) will definitely help with attendance -- players who can't show up may not harvest direct benefits from whatever comes out of a given session, but their characters won't be idle in the meantime.

Given these, are there any major holes in the campaign premise or issues that people can see with what I'm planning?  Even if this group decides not to run with this option, I can always recycle the premise for another group.

I think it's pretty cool!

In reply to Zavael (msg # 61):

I think it's a fairly well thought out premise and the Troupe style play will help with your admitted attendance problems.  A lot of Sagas start out with premises similar to the one you laid out.  The physical setting is interesting as not many Sagas start so far away from the Order's main footprint of power/support.  It seems similar to the Levant in that respect; journeying into a land where direct support is scant, unknown dangers lurk and an actively hostile native population of magic users work against the covenant.

The only advice I can give is to have a good grasp on our mysteries and be prepared for the PCs to totally ignore them.  Honestly, the first few years of re-establishing a Covenant will be spent getting the place shored up and stable, then the magi will want to stretch their wings and MAY explore the covenant and it's mysteries but mainly expect them to pursue their own agendas.

As far as books go, I'd read over Hedge Magic and Rivals if you have them handy.  They have large sections that may be pertinent to the setting.  The 4th Ed. sourcebook Ultima Thule may also be helpful if you can find it.

Best wishes for your upcoming campaign!

Seems like there is some activity here! Yay!

So, I've got a game I'd tried starting, and lots of players bailed. I think some of was allowing too much creation, making that whole process drag on. I've figured out some fixes. I also have two enthusiastic players who post regularly. At the same time, I'd like to play a character and think multiple SGs can help make the game more vibrant and more likely to survive.

I have a theme in mind (still Mythic Europe) that would take 3 SG's (two in addition to myself). It would provide for a fair amount of autonomy between SG's and allow players to have different types of pursuits nicely. Meanwhile, it would keep everything a cohesive whole.

Would anyone be interested in being one of the two beta SG's? Once I've got two, I can actually explain the idea without giving away anything I shouldn't give away to non-SG's.

I don’t have a lot to go with, only recently discovering this reality yesterday nestled in my bundle of holding; nor do I know what is going on here at the Covenants but I do have an idea. Let me know if it already happening.

I want to create a character to play in a covenant, a sense of community with its members for decades (in game no doubt). I want the sense of a house of a band of wizardly brothers (and sisters) guided by high principles and goals. A company occupying a maddening magical ala Castle Falkenstein Keep on the Borderlands, that peasants look up to and explode.

Besides that I wonder, has anyone ever explored the possibility of combining Ars Magica with the feel, lore, vocabulary and setting of The Dying Earth- for Rhialto is Marvelous!

Further, is there Ars Magica fiction, books based on the setting?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:29, Thu 24 Aug 2017.

There is fictional stories within the books, but as for Novels set using the Ars Magica setting, Not really.

I've been thinking that an Ars Magica game set early in the Order could be interesting. Or even mixing the early Order history with the Arthurian Mythos.

An early English covenant could provide a Merlin figure. Faerie would be more powerful and common as would hedge magic traditions. The Dominion is just getting a foothold as many of the lower class still hold to pagan beliefs in private.

Pendragon and the Great Pendragon Campaign could serve as inspiration for the saga. Knights would serve as excellent companion characters as would Saxon or Pict warriors.

The relative lack of books would encourage wizards to adventure more. Vis becomes much more valuable. With the greater power of Faerie, more wizards would be willing to risk using Faerie vis.

This could be a much more fantasy or mythic saga than the usual.

I really wish I had the time to run this.

Its funny you say that, I like Pendragon and Ars Magica so much, they are right next to one another on my bookshelf. I've thought about using them in conjunction too. That would be interesting.

I would play in a game like that for sure, but I'm not familiar enough with the background to run such a game.

I have also thought ArM in the current world would be interesting, with Magic and Faerie existing only in lacunae, the few remaining true wilderness areas, and scattered regios that haven't collapsed.

It wouldn't take much work to turn Ars Magica into a Harry Potter RPG.

Diagonal Alley, the Train, Hogwarts, are all hidden in regions.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:43, Fri 25 Aug 2017.

Confession time.  I did that with one of my games a few years back...  Set it in the location that would eventually become Hogwarts.  Half the fun was being the only one in on the joke  and laying out all the clues and wondering if anyone would figure it out.

Awesome! Did anyone figure it out?

Not that I remember...  It was really a lot of fun playing with the Potter mythos as filtered through Ars Magica and just thinking through how things might change over time from the 13th century to the 20th and how that applied to the realm of Ars Magica and Harry Potter.

  There's actually a lot of concepts and places and ideas that work really quite well between the two universes.  I do think it worked better as a hidden aspect of the game to keep the meta-gaming to a minimum.

I've got one. :) Looking for one more excited SG...

So is anyone running a game like that or is that the way you run a game?

I am not in a position to run my own game.  I just don't have the time to commit to that.
But I've been thinking about it, and I am willing to join you in an assistant/shared SG role.
So if this endeavour is still an ongoing matter; you may count me in.  And I'll do what I can to help.

If you have two regular players, then I guess that makes five of us in the game ... a workable number.

I'm willing to help with server side stuff, pictures, maps, setting the game up, threads, tables, graphs, all the pretty stuff. Or as I like to call them the Logistics.