Ars Magica, or some variation thereof

The appeal Ars Magica held for me was the idea that study and discipline of belief resulted in tangible power, and the balance between the inflexibility and compromises that behavior requires against the power it rewards.

To some extent these are the themes of WFRP, but I'd kind of like to run a game according to the book for once, if just to spare me the mental difficulty of tracking all the shit I've made up off-the-cuff. Also, the troupe-style of roleplaying, with a more episodic nature, might prove advantageous given our fluctuating group composition.

10/16/06

I just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel, a most excellent book, that has me thinking about the myth of magic and its centrality to legend. I think I'd like to run a game, troupe-style, where all the players have two characters, a mage and a not-mage ('companions'), run self-contained (a few sessions at most) "adventures", with the players having a guaranteed home base. At the start of each adventure, the players choose who they want to bring, with a maximum number of mages depending on the adventure, and the players will have to work out which mage characters go and which companions go, with the GM ensuring that everyone gets equal time playing their mage characters. I think that after any adventure, mages will be required to "study" to gain magical experience from them.

--Matts 11:11, 24 October 2006 (MDT)I just realized that this character setup would provide for an excellent base of intrigue; A player's secondary character(s) should probably have strong ties to their primary, but who's to say, that depending on the player involved, another player couldn't lay the groundwork for a little betrayal?

--BenofZongo 15:55, 25 October 2006 (MDT)I'm not sure that betrayal and intrigue are the same thing: I admit that PK kind of stuff should be more accessible in a game driven by player goals, but I think the emphasis, at least as I see it, in the "intrigue" style play thingy is on making the GM a reactionary rather than driving force. It's a whole different play style rather than just the addition of new story elements (such as betrayal)