Ars Magica


Ars Magica is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' - a historically-grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Middle Ages are factual reality. The players' involvement revolves around an organization of magi and their allies and foes both mundane and supernatural. The game was originally developed by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, with its first edition published in 1987.
The current edition was written by David Chart, and published in 2004 by Atlas Games, who continue to develop new material for it.
Ars Magica was one of the first examples of a Troupe system. Early editions recommended that the players collaborate to create the campaign world and story with:
To enhance the 'authenticity' of the historical setting, the game uses medieval Latin for a number of key terms, particularly in the game's most prominent feature, a system of Hermetic Magic.

History

The first two editions were published by Lion Rampant Games, with several modules published by Atlas Games. In 1991, Lion Rampant merged with White Wolf Magazine to form White Wolf Game Studio.
White Wolf published several adventure modules for the game before adding its Third Edition rulebook, which greatly expanded the settings and peripheral rules while leaving the core system intact. White Wolf then produced at least a dozen Third Edition supplements, including the addition of Divine and Infernal mechanics, rules for shamanic magic, beginning the Tribunal series and completing the 'Four Seasons' tetralogy of stories begun by Lion Rampant.
Publishing rights were sold in 1994 to Wizards of the Coast, who brought in Jonathan Tweet and started development on a fourth edition while publishing one 4th Edition supplement and two republished 3rd edition supplements. Development fell behind schedule, and on December 5, 2005, Wizard of the Coast announced they would leave the tabletop role-playing business altogether.
The next year the rights were sold to Atlas Games, who publish the 4th edition, added several new stories, and continued to expand peripheral material and the line of Tribunal books.
Atlas then released a 5th edition in 2004, making extensive changes to the system, especially the mechanics for combat, experience, and character creation. Many players felt that the alterations to the combat system were long overdue, especially the rules for armour, which in previous editions made wearers much more likely to die in combat. Ars Magica 5th edition won the Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game of 2004.
Since 2014, the 4th Edition has been distributed for free at Warehouse 23 fronted by Steve Jackson Games.
Many characteristics of the Storyteller system developed by White Wolf can be traced to Ars Magica and the fact that the Storyteller system was developed by one of Ars Magica's co-authors; White Wolf's was envisioned as "Ars Magica in the Modern World," and many of the changes in the 3rd edition of ArM were to make the game-worlds more compatible.

Setting

The setting, Mythic Europe, is primarily based on Europe of the 12th and 13th centuries; the geography is the same, and the mundane politics are practically identical. However, in Ars Magica the "Medieval paradigm" - the way the world was described or understood in that time period - is the literal truth. In this setting, Faeries actually do steal lost children, Demons cause disease and crop failure, Angels help the righteous, and dragons and other Magical creatures are real. In 3rd edition, to tie the game into the World of Darkness line, this was reality because of the beliefs; other editions distance themselves from this interpretation, simply taking place in a world where those beliefs happen to be true.
Player characters typically alternate between the role of a magus, and a companion. Companions are select skilled non-magi who help wizards conduct their affairs. Additionally, there are a number of Grogs who can be controlled by any player. The wizards generally gather in specialized strongholds called covenants, which are often built in places of power. A covenant is typically a 'home base' where the magi are in charge. Some consider the covenant to be the central character of the game, and the official rules encourage troupes to develop the covenant along those lines.

The Order of Hermes

Standard player-character magi belong to the Order of Hermes, a society of magically "Gifted" humans which was inspired in 767 A.D. by the witch Trianoma and magus Bonisagus after the latter developed a breakthrough in communicating and manipulating magic.
While magicians at this time were scattered, rarely social and highly distrustful of each other as a rule, two factors strongly favored mutual co-operation. One was Trianoma's political vision of an organization that would unite the Gifted for their mutual benefit. The other was Bonisagus' second breakthrough, the Parma Magica : a highly efficient and easily taught personal ritual which could allow these disparate individuals and traditions to meet on common ground with some assurance of safety. Over subsequent centuries, with very few exceptions, magi who quit or refuse to join the Order have been hunted down and destroyed, giving the Order a definite monopoly over magical resources within its 'jurisdiction'.
While each of the Order's twelve Houses maintains a distinct baseline or tradition in pursuing and transmitting knowledge and power, the Order is also divided into Tribunals, each defined by a geographic region of Mythic Europe. Each Tribunal holds a gathering of its magi once every seven years; attendance is not mandatory, though it is essential for certain procedures. Once every 33 years, each Tribunal sends a representative to the Grand Tribunal at the site of the Order's founding in the Black Forest.
The Tribunals loosely correspond to groupings or portions of modern-day nations; each has a distinct cultural and historical flavor which is expanded in the Tribunals of Hermes series. For example, the Roman Tribunal is a densely populated area with a shortage of magical resources, offering highly politicized plot-lines ; Novgorod features vast areas of harsh wilderness, where pagan tribal warfare and magical beasts are significantly more common than elsewhere.
As with any system of borders not contingent on clear demarcation such as a river or wall, the territory of each Tribunal is rarely defined with precision; this is partially illustrated with the 'Tribunal Border' characteristic, which situates a covenant in a location that could place it in more than one Tribunal. Such ambiguity can exist even with "clear" borders such as rivers or mountain ranges, since incorporating supernatural aid or power into the structure can allow them to thrive even in the middle of either such feature.

Realms of Power

The overarching premise of the Ars Magica setting is that the "mundane" world of ordinary, physical existence is a place where four great supernatural forces have varying degrees of influence and presence.
;The Divine realm: This is the supreme, holy force of Creation - God as represented by the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions, and his agents in the world. Divine influence diminishes anything not attuned to it and is categorically opposed to all things Infernal. One of the Order's struggles is in reconciling their avoidance of mundane politics with the inexorable spread of the Dominion.
;The Infernal realm: Satan and his demonic forces. In the medieval context, this includes everything from Satan himself to illnesses and bad smells. Demons are compelled to corrupt, destroy, and tempt all mortals to sin; while the Order of Hermes refuses to explicitly name the Infernal as their enemies, they have been forbidden from entering into agreements with Hell's minions ever since a corruption scandal nearly ruined House Tytalus in the 11th century. As the evil/negative counterpart to the Divine, Infernal power also weakens the effects of any Realm not attuned to Hell or other forsaken spaces. Infernally tainted forms of magic do exist, usually of great deceptive or destructive power, or acquired too easily for understanding, especially in order to tempt magi. Anyone in the Order found guilty of diabolism is expelled and hunted down.
;The Faerie realm: Creatures of traditional fairy tales. These creatures are often capricious, sometimes malicious, but invariably addicted to human attention, emotion and creative expression. Despite such considerations, Study of the Faerie realm can be rewarding to some. Magi are allowed to associate with the Fae as long as they do not incur their wrath and thereby endanger their fellows.
;The realm of Magic: A mysterious arcane force, to which all magi are inherently attuned. This is the power almost exclusively used to cast spells and enchant objects. Magic and Faerie have some positive resonance with each other, reflected in either aura's benefit to the other realm's powers, and in that remote or lost pagan traditions can have connections with either.
Additionally, a "Realm of Reason" appeared in the Third Edition. This was associated with skepticism and empirical observation, and its "rational aura" challenged most supernatural effects. Many fans of the game consider this to be paradoxical and inconsistent, since applying reason and rationality to the world of Ars Magica should really lead to the conclusion that magic does exist and fairies are real, etc., and yet the "True Reason" promoted by this fifth realm posited the contrary, and thus resembled a delusional state of mind rather than a rational one. The realm of Reason had additional counter-intuitive effects - for example, imposing penalties on wizard's magic use when in prominent mundane libraries, despite the predominant portrayal of Hermetic Magic as a scholarly pursuit.
Reason proved an unwelcome addition to the game; neither Fourth nor Fifth Edition have included this 'Realm', and all references to it have been stricken from the canonical setting.

System

Die-rolling conventions

Ars Magica's mechanics use the ten-sided die. To perform a typical action, one of eight Characteristics is added to a relevant Ability, and a d10 is rolled. The total of Characteristic + Ability + die roll is compared to a target difficulty or Ease Factor; the action succeeds if the rolled total is greater than or equal to the target number.
If the action is routine or trivial and nothing in particular is at stake, the roll is read as 1-10 and simply added to the total. If there is an opportunity for exceptional success or failure, the die is read as 0-9 and is called a "Stress" roll. For Stress rolls, results of "1" and "0" have special significance. A '1' is rerolled and the result doubled. A roll of '0' is also re-rolled as a Botch roll. If any botch die also comes up '0', the action has been botched: failed in some disastrous way. Otherwise, the roll merely equals zero, and the character is assumed to have been unsuccessful at whatever they were trying to accomplish.

Magic system

The centerpiece of Ars Magica is the system of Hermetic Magic devised by Bonisagus. It consists of 15 Arts, divided into 5 Techniques and 10 Forms. This is sometimes called a "Verb/Noun" system: the Technique is the verb, and the Form is the noun. These 'verb-noun' combinations can be used to cast both Formulaic spells and Spontaneous spells. Every apprentice is "opened" in all 15 Arts before fully joining the Order; each Art begins with a Score of 0 and a mage may usually only increase one of them during a season.
Each Technique is named by a first-person singular present tense indicative Latin verb:
Each Form is named by a singular accusative Latin noun:
A mage's skill when casting a spell is the sum of their scores in the appropriate technique and form.
Some spells involve more than one Technique, and/or more than one Form at once; each Art used in addition to the basic pair is called a requisite. All relevant Art Scores are compared: the caster's lowest Technique and lowest Form are used, reflecting the limiting of the caster's magical knowledge.
Regardless of how high one's Art Scores may rise, there are outer boundaries to the application of Hermetic Magic. Bonisagus's theory outlines a set of inherent Limits, similar in concept to the laws of physics; the two central, 'Greater' Limits are:
  1. Magic cannot influence a pure manifestation of the Divine; while earthly Relics and agents of the Divine may be resistant to magic they are not immune, but it is impossible to interfere with a Miracle.
  2. Magic cannot permanently change a target's Essential Nature.
There are also eleven 'Lesser Limits' which are generally thought either to derive from the two Greater Limits, or to be flaws in Hermetic Theory which may eventually be 'corrected'.
Additional statistics for every spell are Target, Range, and Duration.
For reasons of balance, some spells require the expenditure of "vis" - magical essence in physical form - which all magi and covenants tend to make a point of hoarding and/or trading. No Creo effect, for example, can be permanent unless vis is consumed during the casting.
Some Formulaic Magic is so effective that it can only be achieved with vis and an elaborate, time-consuming ritual. This automatically applies to any spell of a greater Level than 50, any spell with a Duration of 'Year', and any non-Imaginem spell with a range of 'Sight'.

Character development

All characters improve their Abilities by applying experience which can be earned through Exposure, Practice, Training or Study. Magic, however, is stressed as a multifaceted discipline with a greater variety of avenues for improvement. Magi are expected to spend months at a time with books and/or laboratory equipment: inventing new spells, strengthening their Arts, enchanting items, and so forth. Ars Magica includes rules for magical research within the game's standard 'advancement' timescale of 3-month seasons.
These seasonal activities generally concern either study of a text or laboratory activity. Although participating in adventures, missions and other endeavors outside of seasonal activity gives characters Story Experience, the most substantial progress is nearly always from the seasonal activities of magi. Hence, time in an Ars Magica campaign may pass much faster than in other RPGs but is also more 'accounted for'. To accommodate this, many magi prolong their lives with unique longevity formulas ; this only delays the aging process, however; beyond a certain point one's longevity formula will have no effect at all and must be reformulated. The increased longevity has led to a prevalent attitude among members of the Order that Companions in general will come and go - perhaps killed in action, occasionally living long enough to retire - while the Magi carry on. Magi may concoct longevity formulas for non-magi, but this is a rare consideration, less effective than devising one's own personal formula, and is an expensive prospect in time and resources in any case.
Study is primarily achieved with texts, each designed to enhance an Ability, Art or specific Spell. A respectable covenant inevitably requires either a respectable library or sufficient commodities to exchange for the use of other libraries, since the dominant form of Hermetic Magic is a scholarly pursuit. Magi who are able to write useful books or teach well can use these as commodities, trading with other magi for books or training.
Lab Projects concern projects to enhance one's repertoire of spells or magical artifacts. All projects have a level of effect to which the character compares their 'Lab Total': Intelligence + Magic Theory ability + sum of a Form and Technique + other bonuses. Some merely require a Lab Total to match the Level of Effect; more extensive endeavors simply add up each Lab Total in 'points' until twice the Level of Effect are accumulated.
The following Lab Projects are the most commonly pursued:

Adventures

reviewed Ars Magica for White Wolf #11, rating it 10 out of 10 overall, and stated that "I really don't think I can praise "Ars Magica" highly enough. This is simply one of those games that you must get."
In the December 1988 edition of Dragon, Ken Rolston was effusive in his praise, calling Ars Magica "a distinctive, original, and intriguing treatment of magic for fantasy role-playing games... earnest, colorful, and meticulous in its development of a magic system with a plausible, coherent rationale. Its attempts to integrate this magic into a historical context are persuasive, and the game master notes and staging tips are wonderfully perceptive." Rolston concluded, "This is the most interesting and original fantasy role-playing system and setting I've seen in a long time."
Six months later, Rolston revisited Ars Magica for a more in-depth review in the July 1989 edition of Dragon. Rolston noted that "the quality of writing, editing, and presentation is first-class", and he admired the "storyguide" system of role-playing: "This emphasis on the dramatic and narrative elements of role-playing produces some distinctive and thought-provoking perspectives on commonly accepted conventions of role-playing gaming." Although Rolston gave good marks for the game mechanics, character creation system and combat rules, he was especially drawn to the magic, which he said "has elegant tone and atmosphere." He also liked the quasi-historical medieval setting. He concluded with strong recommendation: "The Ars Magica game features an original and exciting game system, a coherent and satisfying treatment of magic, a convenient and imaginative exploitation of a historical medieval setting, and an explicit and appealing presentation of a role-playing style that emphasizes the common development of the setting, narrative, and PC-group activity over the personal expression of the individual PC."
In the October-November 1989 edition of Space Gamer, J.M. Caparula commented that "In the end, Ars Magica is a superb roleplaying game, one that furthers the gaming art in a positive direction."
In a 1996 reader poll conducted by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Ars Magica was ranked 19th. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: "This is a fantasy game for the thinking player - although there's plenty of scope for action, too. A first success for Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, who both went on to even bigger things, Ars Magica includes one of the most flexible, highly-regarded magic systems in the roleplaying hobby. The game, which places heavy emphasis on storytelling, is extremely popular with fans who have followed its troubled history through four different publishers. With Atlas just about to produce a new edition, those fans are currently feeling suitably optimistic."

Reviews