[freeroleplay] Re: Character advancement as a game
- From: "Samuel Penn" <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:34:14 -0000 (GMT)
Per I. Mathisen said:
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Samuel Penn wrote:
>> Have you seen Ars Magica? For Magus characters (which the game is very
>> much based around) what they study and how they study it is a big part
>> of the game, and often drives the narrative, especially when resources
>> are limited.
>
> I've never seen Ars Magica. Could you say a bit more about it and how
> this character advancement system works?
The mechanics are pretty simple, and not much different from many
other game systems. You get XP, which is put on skills to raise
them. XP can come from an adventure, or it can come from study of
some kind.
The important thing about Ars Magica however is the setting, and the
assumptions made for the campaign. The PC magi all live in a covenent
(be it a keep, dark tower, town house, mystical cave etc). Time is
measured in seasons - which is used as a study period.
Initially, as young magi build up their covenent, they probably spend
most of their time on adventures, earning XP the hard way. As they
settle down though, they spend more time in their lab, involved in
study and experimentation only to pop out to go on some adventure
once a year or so.
It's one of the few games were a common cause of PC death is old age.
The best way to study and improve your magical arts is by reading
a book. To do that, you need a book. If you're lucky, there's one in
your library. It's more likely that the sort of book you want isn't
immediately available, so you need to go find some other magus,
probably older and more powerful than you, and beg a book from them.
Oh oh - social interaction. That social interaction may then lead
to having to do an 'adventure' to solve some nagging problem for
the older, wiser, magus. It may require some exchange, maybe a
promise to copy out some nifty spells the PC has invented themself
that the older magus would like to learn.
If the PCs want to get involved in politics (within the Order of
Hermes, and sometimes there isn't a choice of avoiding such), then
favours and promises rise up again, PCs may be required to study
or learn in order to fulful such a promise. Maybe they have to write
out a book detailing their own knowledge.
As well as study, there are other ways to spend such time - inventing
magical items (improvement of a sort), or finding and 'binding' a
magical familiar. The rules are extensive enough to make doing all
this interesting (it's not like d20, where you get a feat, spend some
cash and XP, and you have a +2 sword). There's several pages worth
of rules detailing the options available to a magus wanting to write
a book - whether to illuminate it, quality of paper and ink, etc.
This may sound overly complex, but it helps many players really get
into the game, and making the whole process much more interesting.
The ultimate goal for many is to find and train an apprentice.
With such comes the bonuses of someone helping your lab work, but
also political and social responsibility.
At the end of the day, it's all just an excuse for the player to
improve their character. But the way the background is set up,
means that this forces involvement with the outside world. The
political ramifications of this involvement may feed back into
new requirements (a spell to find a magical gateway may be
needed), which leads to more study and advancement.
It's not for everyone, and it is one of the systems which require
players to do a lot of work outside the game (planning their
seasons of study, designing their uber magic item), but it is
one of my favourite games, and about the only one where character
skill development is a major part of the game, rather than just
30 seconds at the end of the session, when the GM says "you can
all have 3 XP".
The PDF for ArsMagica 4th Edition is available for free (not Free)
on the web somewhere, though I forget where.
--
Be seeing you,
Sam.
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