I won’t get much more done tonight (missed on my Nerd move and agreed to go out drinking instead) but I wanted to share what I’ve got so far on my Ars Magica hack.
The first question I struggled with was: What makes Ars Magica, Ars Magica? While there are many things about the system itself that I love, my goal here is to capture the essence, not the mechanics. With that in mind, I came up with this list:
Wizards
The Gift (Twilight, Longevity Ritual)
The Order of Hermes (and the Houses)
Covenants (Companions, Grogs)
Magic (Spontaneous Casting in any combination of technique + form; Formulaic Magic that is less flexible but more consistent)
Laboratory (Rituals, Magic Item creation, Research)
Politics (Order, Covenant, Feudal, Church)
My instinct is that each house should have its own playbook.
The game will centre around the Covenant, so each character will bring something to the Covenant as part of character creation.
Most mechanics will be defined at the wizard level, but I plan to make sure companions are still relevant.
While there is a lot I like about DW, as Tim Franzke pointed out, AW may prove to be even more central to the hack.
Many lab rules can be cribbed from the Savvyhead.
Grogs can be defined using a combination of rules from the Chopper, Hardholder and Hocus.
There’s obviously a ton of work yet to be done, but I’m feeling pretty positive about these first steps.
Let me know what you think!
How do you feel about troop play, multiple characters per player, and seasonal play? Would they be part of the hack?
The plan is to build in companions with the Mage character creation. Each player creates their own companion but they have to give it to someone else to play.
Grogs will be handled like gangs in AW.
Rotating MC?
If only my lazy players would step up 😉 Tim Franzke.
I hope to have the system fully support troupe style, including a rotating MC.
A companion is a non-wizard pc with significant bonds to a wizard.
I found the defining characteristics of a wizard were less his house, but rather his virtues and flaws, though the two are related.
Houses = playbooks seems to be the way that makes the most sense.
Just FYI, the AW hacking community is here and might have more/better responses for you: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107071334810365821574
/sub
At Alex Norris and Tim Franzke’s suggestion I’m going to move this over to the PbtA community. While I plan to emulate DW’s clarity and style, the original AW rules seem to be more easily adaptable to what I’m trying to create. Hope to see you there 🙂
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107071334810365821574