Ars Magica, the TRoS way....

[Morfedel]

sorry, hadnt been on the web site in a bit. I'll play around with a Palladium conversion and get back to ya.

Anyone try these live yet? I havent had the chance, I dont have a group that wants to play this, as right now, after spiderman and a couple other movies they want to play superhero games. Which is fine with me, cuz I love those too, but it makes it darned hart to adequately test my own experiment here! :P

[Charles Smith]

I've just started a TROS game that's had a couple of lurches since its inception, but we're planning on using the conversion in a couple of weeks. I'll post the info here if you want; the player of the sorcerer is real excited about it and is reading over the document I printed. I'll let you know what we find after a couple of games. :)

Thanks, BTW, for the conversion. My old group started to really like the TROS system of magic, but since we dispersed my new group wants to try TROS the Ars Magica way. Very cool of you guys to do.

Charles

[Morfedel]

Yes, please do post! I need feedback from actual playtesting to see how it pans out!

And I suspect it will take a number of sessions before a clear picture forms, but every little bit, you know....

[Morfedel]

Big old bump here.

Did anyone ever actually test this out? Any feedback on it?

[Malechi]

We'll be playing again this weekend.  The first signs of sorcerous activity should start to pop up then with some NPCs... I'll keep you posted...

[Morfedel]

Thanks. I am anxious to see how well these rules work and how much tweaking I might have to do to them. :D

[Malechi]

Hey..

we've been using the Ars to TROS rules for a couple of sessions now so I'll give some short feedback

- The players love it, the rules seem a lot more inuitive than the TROS Sorcery rules to the players
- While they love them, they're frustrated by the limitations or i should say, boundaries imposed by the effect levels.  I guess this stems from reducing 60+ effect levels down to 5.  Perhaps this could be looked at giving more fidelity or what have you.  
- something i noticed with normal TROS sorcery... your skill at sorcery just allows you to learn fancier spells or vagaries at a higher level, but has no implication on your ability to cast the spells, beyond the "gateway" effect.  

What this means is, while you may become more learned in your Arts, you don't get any more powerful until such time as you start bumping your attributes up.  I'm not sure I like this and the distinction between the way power is up'ed in Combat, versus Sorcery is somewhat grating.  While Combat Proficiencies have the Gateway effect as far as certain maneuvres are concerned, your effectiveness is given a two-fold boost from raising attributes and also your skill levels (Prof levels having a more direct effect than raising a single stat)... I'm not sure how I feel to be honest, it seems to be a little bit of a slap in the chops for Sorcerers.  As this is applicable to standard sorcery and the Ars conversion, what do people think about it?  It seems as though Sorcery Pools will stay stagnant for the most.

- lastly, the Fatigue rules... OUCH! .. this is a real biatch.  As Fatigue isn't returned too easily its immediate short-term effect is a hell of a lot more pronounced than say aging in the TROS sorcery rules.  I'd suggest cutting a little closer to the Ars bone and making spells generally easier on casters, with Twilight Point roll-offs instead of Fatigue Rolls, with casters able to use Fatigue to power up spells or something instead..

anyways

more later


Jason

[Morfedel]

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm glad you found things you like! As for the things you dont... I'll give it some thought. In the meantime, if you guys stumble on any options YOU like, feel free to post them here!

I'll think about it and get back to you in about a week once I have an idea of how to address those issues.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

[Malechi]

Note with the objections to the difference between the Combat Pool makeup versus the Sorcery Pool makeup, that is more to do with TROS itself than the conversion which uses Kaa and Form as the basis, just as TROS does.  What was the rationale behind this difference in system? Just curious...

Looking forward to your ideas..

cheers

jason :)

[jeff_vandenberg]

I've just recently found TRoS and am going to be demoing a game of it shortly to get a proper feel for it, beyond just an academic understanding of the rules.  I have also read the ArM conversion, as I am very much an Ars Magica fan.. *dances for 5th ed*, and it looks good from what I understand academically of the game so far.  

I was just curious if there had been any more work on this conversion, either to further edit it, or playtest it further?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Malechi]

Hi there,

I can't speak for the creators of the conversion but I've been using the Ars to TROS conversion in my game for the last err four sessions.  So far its been a mixed bag.  We've found that its all fine and good if the player has formulated spells already worked out or has a spontaneous spell that he's worked out previously.  The headaches start when you begin to start to really do stuff on the fly.  FREX: in our last session we had a scene whereby the caster was engaged in a flashback scene to an incident where he encountered an Astirax (a demon that sniffs out magic users and magic rich areas for the Big Bad in Midnight) at a nexus point within an ancient forest.  Now this scene was supposed to be *his* moment, a time where the player (an Ars Magica nut) could let loose with the magics and really test the limits.  We had a lot of atmosphere built up, the pacing was just right, there were winds blowing, clouds gathering, an old-fashioned magic-using creature vs wizard showdown, the magic lake in the middle of this forest was swirling, the natural arcane winds whipping the water up and around, the place fairly throbbed with magic...then "Hang on.. just gotta work out the TN..."  ...the cd track played through a couple of times... "Just go for it dude.. cast the spell..."  .."But i gotta get the TN right..."  more replays of the cd track...

Now this might be a problem of the player grasping onto the system too much in a scene that really required more of a, dare I say, Narrative play-through.  It really drained all colour out of the scene and left us yawning as he tried to figure out: a) what the spell target number was going to be b) figure out if he could even cast it c) reformulate the spell so that he could cast it .. in the end he just solidified the earth around the feet of the Astirax and then made the solid bits spike up into the beasts chest.  Somehow I was hoping for something more.  Perhaps with the right player this would have been easier.  He was however, familiar with the system and the conversion.  

Something else I've noticed is the factors that go into determining the TN.  The AM values for Range, Duration etc are really cool, they have flavour and are just that little bit vague at times to give people license to go really whacko with their spells.  I think perhaps the Converted parameters are a little bit dry...  We'll be using the AM versions from now on and eyeball the effects this has on TN etc...

Consider it a playtesting session within a campaign... so far the jury is out though it looks promising should these little bumps get ironed out :)

cheers

jason k.

[jeff_vandenberg]

Thanks for the summary..  I think i'll stick to the native TRoS system for a while then, and probably just modify the aging roll to be a "twilight"/Paradox roll (depending on your prefered magical system), so that you may not age, but strange shit will hit you.  I can understand the PoV where the aging just isn't a real factor in even a long term game.  But acquiring temporary Twilight or Paradox can be much more effective in the long term, and can help to explain why people don't like mages, as they also manifest wierd shit around them as a consequence of their magics. After all, no one likes milk instantly curdling when someone walks past. ;)

Thanks much,

Jeff

[Malechi]

I think customising the cost factor of magic to your world is pretty essential.  I'm currently considering using Resonance factor equal to 1 mile per TN.  This works especially nice in Midnight where spellcasters are hunted down and slain.  

Tonight we played a game of actual Ars Magica and I came to some conclusions regarding that system.  Firstly, part of the attraction was the ability to cast spells on the fly, spontaneous that is.  Unfortunately the base level of ability isn't taken from Spontaneous spells (as it is in TROS and indeed the conversion) but from Ritual or Formulated spells.  You just get a hell of a lot worse after that (twice as bad for spontaneous spells  if you're using fatigue to fuel the spell, five times as bad if you're not using any Fatigue!).  Its probably obvious to those familiar with Ars but the games basically geared towards wizards who sit in towers and do bugger all but study and make up spells (formulated) all day.   That engenders a certain type of campaign play.  Unfortunately that doesn't match up with the style that I'm currently in favour of, ie the blood-opera/dark-epic tragic hero style.  

I'm currently working on a nice open sorcery system without the headaches associated with Ars "Can I cast this spell.. no damn, lets refigure that" and the TROS science angle.  Something that allows for a nice descriptive effect in a more narrative style, instead of the number crunching style.  I'll post it in another thread when I do have something digestible.

cheers

jason k. :)

[jeff_vandenberg]

Mmm.. Resonance.. that is nice.. *kicks that about a bit*

[Morfedel]

Hi; this is James, the creator of the Ars Magica to TROS conversion.

It certainly isn't flawless: but then, i haven't had much of a chance to try it out myself, as getting these players here to play anything but D&D is a real pain in the backside.

Which is why I posted it all here: I needed playtest feedback.

This weekend I'll look it over again and see how I can tweak it. I'm going to compare it side-by-side with AM as well this time.

Could you give me more specific examples of where it fell apart?


Thanks!