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Mors Rattus posted:The driver of setting conflict is 'it is 1220 AD, comma, one of the most politically active periods in Real World History, and also there is a ton of poo poo to poke your nose in if you want to study lost or ancient or secret magic.' I really like so much about Ars Magica. Most of the draw for me is living the life of a scholarly academic who actually had to be really self motivated to want to do research and become famous or just amass books and study other people's work and become incredibly personally powerful. All the other wizards are doing the same thing so it is a lot about politics and getting allies to help you vote in wizard Congress and fighting petty squabbles over perceived slights. You also have lesser characters you also play who go off and have d+D style adventures on your behalf. I really like that reading a really good book for a season is better than a bunch of looting and murder (unless you are stealing books during Wizards War)  The sourcebooks are also interesting and educational looks at The 12th century, a good bonus
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Dec 12, 2017 02:46
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What's the system like in Ars Magica? Everything about the concept sounds great but I always heard the system was nuts.
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Dec 12, 2017 02:50
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Mors Rattus posted:The driver of setting conflict is 'it is 1220 AD, comma, one of the most politically active periods in Real World History, and also there is a ton of poo poo to poke your nose in if you want to study lost or ancient or secret magic.' Sure, but, what in particular does Ars Magicka do well in that milieu? What is a normal game shaped like? I just don't have any play experience with it and the book hasn't been super helpful at giving me a quick and dirty about what kind of games one plays in it. Do wizards fit into standard historical dramas, or are they so powerful that they can hold entire nations to ransom like a four-color supervillain? Like, I get the sense from the grog rules that wizards generally don't go out themselves - they're in their towers making spells. That's fine, but how much should I expect PC wizards to be able to change history because they wanted their home in Scandinavia to be in Italy (for the weather)? And since grogs are apparently not meant to be super influential themselves, should I be expecting play to look more like early D&D with adventurer groups going looking for reagents and dying often? I have no idea what a standard session of Ars Magicka looks like. The book was dense enough and written in giant blocks of tiny print, with huge tables of character creation elements and factions for wizards, I bounced off of it (not least because I don't have a strong desire to run anything in it yet, so don't have a strong drive to read through it). EDIT: Ok, cool, glad I got the basics of 'grogs running around' right.
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Dec 12, 2017 02:56
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Joe Slowboat posted:Sure, but, what in particular does Ars Magicka do well in that milieu? What is a normal game shaped like? I just don't have any play experience with it and the book hasn't been super helpful at giving me a quick and dirty about what kind of games one plays in it. Do wizards fit into standard historical dramas, or are they so powerful that they can hold entire nations to ransom like a four-color supervillain? Ars Magica is fundamentally a wizard village simulator. The whole group makes a covenant (the aforementioned wizard village) together and come up with some interesting things for it to deal with. Each player creates one wizard, one important non-wizard and as many randos they can handle. Each season, everyone does something. Maybe it's staying in their tower to work on a new spell. Maybe they're training their skills.Maybe they're going on an adventure! Generally these adventures only include one or two wizards, a few secondary characters and an arbitrary number of villagers for the other players to control, partially because wizards are innately disliked by non-wizards and partially because everyone else just has better poo poo to be doing. What are these adventures about? Maybe you need to hunt down some rare components for a ritual you're planning. Maybe you're going on a pilgrimage. Maybe you need to travel to the nearest tribunal for some wizard politics. Maybe the nearby nobles are getting mad and you need to do some actual politics. (But not any actual politics that break the Order of Hermes' rules, but maybe politics that only technically don't break the rules.) Basically you're just trying to play to your characters' interests without letting your whole covenant fall apart. I might be explaining that badly, but hopefully that helps. Lurks With Wolves fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 06:51
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Night10194 posted:What's the system like in Ars Magica? Everything about the concept sounds great but I always heard the system was nuts. The basic mechanic is 1d10+Modifiers vs Difficulty. Then it gets complicated. Seriously, this is a SUPER crunchy game. 1d10+Modifier is a normal check, but there are also Stress Checks. On a Stress Check, a 0 is a 0 rather than 10, and risks a botch (which you roll to see if it actually botched or was just a 0, based on how risky the thing is). If you roll a 1, you instead roll another d10 and double the result. On this roll, 0=10 and doesn't threaten a botch, but every time you roll a 1 you double the modifier. So if you roll 1,1,1,4 you get a 32 (2*2*2*4). When Doing Magic, you total up your Technique (Verb) and Form (Noun). So throwing a fireball is Creo Ignem (Create Fire) and add that to your die. Difficulty steps for spells go in multiples of 5, called Magnitudes. If you know a spell, you use your full value. If you don't, you use 1/2 your value and it's a Stress Check that fatigue you. Or you can use 1/5 your value and not get fatigued. Every skill and art and stuff has its own XP total. When you gain XP for Doing A Thing you immediately put it into whatever trait you're trying to raise. XP costs increases as a multiple of the value, so it's more expensive to go 3->4 than 1->2. The vast majority of XP comes from downtime. The game is broken into four seasons per year, and each season you can Do A Thing. Read a book, study raw magic, work in the lab, or go on adventures to name a few examples. Each Thing You Do is basically just training one of the traits. The amount of XP you gain is based on the quality of the source. A really good book gives more XP than just practicing yourself, although books have limits on how many times you can use them. Combat uses a Wounds system, where you take wounds of varying significance in battle, and are much more likely to die from wounds after a battle than during it. There's also a bunch of smaller subsystems for stuff like lab work and literally anything else you'd want to do in a Medieval Simulator 1226 NOTE: This is all from memory, actual details may vary
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Dec 12, 2017 07:17
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Also there're five editions with varying levels of fans for each, though they're not especially partisan by RPG standards it seems. Fifth edition is the latest, and seems a bit more accessibly written than others. I seem to recall there was word of work on a sixth edition. EDIT: Has it been mentioned Mors did an F&F of it? It's, uh, rather complete. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 07:23
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It's also getting a Gumshoe adaptation at some point to play Wizard cops, though I'm not sure where that's at in development.
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Dec 12, 2017 12:10
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unseenlibrarian posted:It's also getting a Gumshoe adaptation at some point to play Wizard cops, though I'm not sure where that's at in development. This sounds amazing. One of my favorite characters is definitely wizard cop who loves pinning minor crimes on rivals. Just make sure you can handle magic duels!
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Dec 12, 2017 12:24
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Changeling: 140k Stretch goals: 142k - Shield section in Book of Kiths. 144k - Swords at Dawn added to the 1e bundle. 150k - Steed section in Book of Kiths.
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Dec 12, 2017 14:29
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Ars Magica tends to go in one of two directions. 1: Storyteller tries to run realistic plot. This ends with standing in the local university library explaining to someone that you're not working on a graduate thesis, just researching the price of salt in 13th century burgundy in your spare time. 2: Storyteller doesn't try to run a realistic plot. This ends with running Against the Giants, and the PCs, upon hearing that there's a giant-sized anvil in the first room, spend the entire rest of the session trying to figure out how to get a single block of that much solid iron back to their chantry. Most gaming sessions consist primarily of the one classics major laughing at everyone trying to pronounce vis.
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Dec 12, 2017 18:05
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Lord_Hambrose posted:There are also (we must imagine spooky) horses that the noble ghost knights have that came from near their underworld city. In addition to being a huge ocean, there is a long and winding river in the underworld and rivers by necessity have banks. Pretty sure the implication is you mostly don't go exploring because of the danger though, unless you are a desperate band of renegades or heretics. The Equitaes Fatalis were the ghost knights with ghost horses. Wraith's Underworld setting was metal as gently caress. God I love Wraith.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:32
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Please tell me there are ghost tanks.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:42
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nofather posted:Please tell me there are ghost tanks. Yes. Wraith: the Great War had rules for ghost Zeppelins. Edit: And the ghost of Oda Nobunaga sword fighting the ghost of Qin Shi Huang Di.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:47
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MonsieurChoc posted:Yes.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:56
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Part of what's great about Wrath is just how much varied poo poo there is to do. Stygian political intrigue, pirates on the Tempest, dungeon crawling in the Labyrinth, exploring the Tempest and Far Shores, hell, you could reskin any number of Westerns and set them in isolated Necropoli. Huge setting.
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Dec 12, 2017 22:32
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MonsieurChoc posted:Yes. Do they also steal the souls of children?
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Dec 12, 2017 22:37
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Pope Guilty posted:Part of what's great about Wrath is just how much varied poo poo there is to do. Stygian political intrigue, pirates on the Tempest, dungeon crawling in the Labyrinth, exploring the Tempest and Far Shores, hell, you could reskin any number of Westerns and set them in isolated Necropoli. Huge setting. Not to mention Orpheus' post-apocalyptic underworld ragnarok!
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Dec 12, 2017 22:40
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Yawgmoth posted:Wraith sounds like The Best Game just from these two lines. It is pretty easy when it is the best game. gently caress Wraith20 can't come soon enough, though I have been waiting years at this point. Soulforging being so important to survival is so loving from.
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Dec 13, 2017 01:42
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Changeling: 150k, about 26 hours left. New goals: 153k: Sword section for Kith and Kin. 155k: Goblin Markets added to the 1e bundle. 157k: Victorian Lost added to the 1e bundle.
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Dec 13, 2017 15:24
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So I'm still running my Mage chronicle about a cabal hunting down Tremere infiltrators in the Pentacle in a mid-sized American city, and in doing so plumbing the local Mysteries (and pursuing their own Obsessions, of course). One of the PCs is a Thyrsus Guardian, who is about to set up a red string board in the sanctum of one of the cabal members (which has quickly become the cabal sanctum). Here is the player's rendition of that board:  The next scene that needs to happen is Akashiwo, the Guardian, actually setting it up in the sanctum, since it's currently encoded in the genetic information of a bunch of bacterial colonies in petri dishes in his own research lab. I'm hoping the rest of the cabal will further add to it, and eventually it can become a grimoire or something. EDIT: an important bit of context is that they managed to acquire a mostly-complete copy of the Suspire early on in the investigations, before it was destroyed by a Time spell from a timeline they are no longer in - this is the 'coverup' that Akashiwo mentions. One of the cabal's Mastigoi was fast enough to use Mind to memorize much of the book before black retrocausal fire consumed it. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 20:30
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Joe Slowboat posted:Here is the player's rendition of that board: So Pepe Silvia was the original vampire then?
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Dec 13, 2017 20:39
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This player also sent me an image of Charlie in the Pepe Silvia scene when he mentioned his character 'had theories'
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Dec 13, 2017 20:41
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Joe Slowboat posted:So I'm still running my Mage chronicle about a cabal hunting down Tremere infiltrators in the Pentacle in a mid-sized American city, and in doing so plumbing the local Mysteries (and pursuing their own Obsessions, of course). 
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Dec 14, 2017 07:15
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Getting Bob Schnoblin's Pyramid of Satanic Power™ reprinted is one of the highlights of my career, no lie.
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Dec 14, 2017 11:08
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I always knew that ice cream had to be satanic.
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Dec 14, 2017 14:16
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2 hours left for Changeling. Currently: 162k Stretch goals: 165k: CtL Companion gets a section on Tokens.
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Dec 14, 2017 15:09
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Final hour: 165k. Every stretch goal has been hit.
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Dec 14, 2017 17:10
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DigitalRaven posted:Getting Bob Schnoblin's Pyramid of Satanic Power™ reprinted is one of the highlights of my career, no lie. As it should be. You did good.
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Dec 14, 2017 18:14
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It's both hilarious and oddly touching. Dude is in his 60s, has no supernatural powers to speak of, and after going bugshit crazy uncovering a good deal of the occult history of the World of Darkness......continues to fight it as best he can. Bob Schnoblin, American hero 
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Dec 14, 2017 20:51
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Pope Guilty posted:Part of what's great about Wrath is just how much varied poo poo there is to do. Stygian political intrigue, pirates on the Tempest, dungeon crawling in the Labyrinth, exploring the Tempest and Far Shores, hell, you could reskin any number of Westerns and set them in isolated Necropoli. Huge setting.
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Dec 15, 2017 00:46
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I think my favorite thing about Wraith is their solution to "where do you put everyone who's ever died" is a combination of "the empire is vast and terrible" and "well, mostly we make stuff out of them."
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Dec 15, 2017 01:14
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Can't stop thinking about a Seer receiving enigmatic mystery commands from the Exarchs over the internet, their patterns emergent through the static of digital media, and immediately posting like "THANK YOU SIR!! we stand behind uou 100% Next step: kick out the Oracles!! SEMPER FI"
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Dec 15, 2017 01:28
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:I think my favorite thing about Wraith is their solution to "where do you put everyone who's ever died" is a combination of "the empire is vast and terrible" and "well, mostly we make stuff out of them." Getting made into a soulsteel girder to literally become a bulwark against Oblivion is a great threat to hold over a party. And don't forget that even though one coin is one soul, you can cut it up to make change.
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Dec 15, 2017 01:41
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'The empire is vast and terrible.' 'Have you ever considered it might be less terrible if you stopped turning innocent people into furniture?' 'That sounds like chair talk to me, son.' EDIT: Fun fact, though. A large part of Stygia's troubles stem from almost precisely this. A huge number of the Spectres that haunt the Tempest were born out of Charon's tithe mutilating many of the Dead and leading them to give in to Oblivion and demand vengeance. Soulforging is a safer option since the furniture can't turn into a spectre, but it's sort of like having a mistake bite you in the rear end, then doubling down as hard as you possibly can on an even more barbaric form of the same mistake. You have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the pain and horror and rage of the souls that've been forged (and while no longer especially sentient, the fact that they've been known to scream is suggestive) has been fueling the ever-stronger Maelstroms. Loomer fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Dec 15, 2017 |
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Dec 15, 2017 02:17
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Frustrating observation leafing through Changeling 2e preview, which hopefully might be caught and revised before final print: the material on Hedge ghosts and the various powers that turn you insubstantial seems to either misapprehend Twilight, or tries to be too clever by half defining new exception cases. The rules laid down, especially in the Whispers of Morning Contract, are almost indistinguishable from saying "Hedge ghosts and people using these powers exist in a fae Twilight state, distinct from those used by ghosts or spirits, but Hedge ghosts don't care about Influence Conditions and use special rules for materialization," but the text makes a big and long show of saying that no, this is just being insubstantial and it's not a Twilight state. But people in the same insubstantial state can touch each other. They're not too insubstantial for that, they have a shared not-substance substance. I mean I'm a big dork for caring about this, but it doesn't really wreck anything to change and it sticks out like a sore thumb among a bunch of otherwise good ideas.
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Dec 15, 2017 05:19
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Loomer posted:You have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the pain and horror and rage of the souls that've been forged (and while no longer especially sentient, the fact that they've been known to scream is suggestive) has been fueling the ever-stronger Maelstroms. Even without it, even without spectres, it's not like the Underworld would be a paradise, right? It's the same kind of thing as when you were alive except the people in control have had hundreds of years to solidify their presence.
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Dec 15, 2017 07:08
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Loomer posted:'The empire is vast and terrible.' Yeah, Charon makes the wrong decision multiple times. I think he starts to realize how badly he hosed up near the end though.
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Dec 15, 2017 07:19
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I Am Just a Box posted:Frustrating observation leafing through Changeling 2e preview, which hopefully might be caught and revised before final print: the material on Hedge ghosts and the various powers that turn you insubstantial seems to either misapprehend Twilight, or tries to be too clever by half defining new exception cases. The rules laid down, especially in the Whispers of Morning Contract, are almost indistinguishable from saying "Hedge ghosts and people using these powers exist in a fae Twilight state, distinct from those used by ghosts or spirits, but Hedge ghosts don't care about Influence Conditions and use special rules for materialization," but the text makes a big and long show of saying that no, this is just being insubstantial and it's not a Twilight state. But people in the same insubstantial state can touch each other. They're not too insubstantial for that, they have a shared not-substance substance. Isn't that basically just saying fae ghosts are another 'frequency' of twilight, same as how twilight ghosts can clearly see other ghosts but spirits are at best creepy vague shadows and blobs?
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Dec 15, 2017 08:20
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nofather posted:Even without it, even without spectres, it's not like the Underworld would be a paradise, right? It's the same kind of thing as when you were alive except the people in control have had hundreds of years to solidify their presence. Oh, it'd still be a pretty nasty place in many respects. It is the gestation sack for inhuman consciousnesses spawned from the left-over raw material of cosmic creation/the rejected remnants of prior Worlds, afterall, even before we get into 'people are terrible' (and reading the Royal Commission report that came out today, boy, we really are terrible) as a contributing factor. It'd just be a somewhat less apocalyptic terrible without Coldheart and his boys screaming for revenge constantly, and more likely one in which Charon's initial goals could have been kept alive even after the horrific discoveries of the reality of the Far Shores. It's a lot easier to let your people find peace and whatever end awaits them with the resolution of their problems when they aren't needed as foot soldiers, and while there'd still be a need for some, without the active and very personal malevolence of the spectres born out of the Empire's own cruelty the enemy'd be a lot easier to manage.
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Dec 15, 2017 08:31
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MonsieurChoc posted:Yeah, Charon makes the wrong decision multiple times. I think he starts to realize how badly he hosed up near the end though. By the end he's basically just singing Hurt. EDIT: You know, thinking on it, Charon is possibly the most sympathetic faction founder/leader in the oWoD lines, barring a handful of Garou and Mages who were introduced as being the 'great hopes' of their respective factions. Every mistake he made is understandable in a way that a lot of the whole 'hard men making hard decisions' stuff fails to be, even as horrifying as it is, and underneath all of that is the basic fact that he's not the real architect of any of it. He's a man - ordinary or otherwise - thrust into a position whether he likes it or not by the Lady of Fate, denied the opportunity to pursue the ultimate goal of almost every Wraith at the time (transcendence) to sacrifice his existence to try and help others. Then eventually everyone he trusts and loves betrays him, dies, or becomes a twisted mockery of the person he loved. No wonder he broke under the strain. Loomer fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Dec 15, 2017 |
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Dec 15, 2017 08:43
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