Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: No Way I'm Gonna Say on April 04, 2003, 06:16:08 AM
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<p>This game is set to move to a new core edition in the semi-near future, and so its core ruleset/material has been "released" to be downloaded as a .PDF from a website that handles net-sales of RPGs. The download supposedly is here <a href=http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=774>http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=774</a>, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet personally, and it doesn't look like it is downloadable without surrendering your name, address, and email, to who knows what junkmail lists or other foul entities, or maybe even then.</p>
<p>In any case, I remember playing this with an old RPG group way back when, and think that it should be commented upon in light of recent developments. Certainly, word of (dubiously) free stuff goes down well on most websites, so I'm sharing the info.</p>
<p>I tried submitting this, along with a review, to the article submission a week ago, and nobody posted it for whatever strange reason.</p>
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It didn't show up. Try again, and I'd be happy to take a look at it.
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try this
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=774
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I just tried to post it again. It is 8416 bytes long, and has some paragraph lengths so long that they wrap around in your input textbox when I C&P the article in. Are there line-length issues or some codes like <HR> which might be illegal in your submission engine?
As for the link, that's where I've gotten to and I don't see a download link on the page. I've tried in both Opera 7.01 and Netscape 4.77, and don't see a download link in either. Thanks for trying though.
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That's mostly because it doesn't accept HTML, in case you do it wrong. It accepts YABB code which uses square brackets and some differences. You don't need anchor tags and you DEFINITELY don't need <P> tags. If lost, use the "Add YABBC tags" section above the posts.
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If it would be easier, just email the article to me directly. My address should be in my profile somewhere.
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I suggest you could change your submission page/code, I see the following above the main text submission box. :)
"Body: (You must include your own HTML in this section.)"
Also, a preview function would be nice, although I accept that this would require someone who knows serious web development to make or steal it. I'm more familiar with the sourceforge style forums which have their own style of codes (similar to or the same as the ones in Livejournal, etc).
Tell ya what, I'll strip the codes and let you folks add 'em. :)
If you want, I can email the HTMLed version, but there weren't all that many codes in it - I added them in my text editor in under 5 minutes.
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Saint's comments apply to the boards only--if you're submitting an article, HTML should be fine (there's no YaBB involved).
Questions such as this, however, should be answered by Tage. I don't know why he hasn't commented yet, but I'll be sure to flay him soundly next time I see him.
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By the way, I read a lot of ARs Magica when I was a kid, and I always thought it was really cool. Never got to play, though--maybe I'll have to take a crack at it now. Thanks for pointing this out.
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Hey, no problem. I'm hoping mostly that I can get someone to actually manage to download this thing, and set up a mirror so I can get it too. :) If it doesn't happen, at least I've embarrased these folks for putting up a link that is confusing at best in a press release. ;)
I stand by my warnings in my review though - it takes real players to avoid the munchkinism and min-max sinkhole that is always a risk.
It's received, or should I send it in an email?
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Send the email, I can't find the article submission anywhere.
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Sent it in the body from a mail account to your timewasters.com email account. Successful?
P.S. I would appreciate my email account not being shown in the author info on the article - I've had bad spam experiences, and worse experiences being tracked down by ex-girlfriends.... :(
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Tage needs to check that submit articles page, I think certain deparments are bugged. I've had problems with the RPG section too.
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I got it, I'll post is Monday...unless it's full of rabid political diatribes or porn or something. I haven't read it yet.
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*joke*
Well darn, I guess I'll never manage to subvert this site for use in spreading my cult-doctrinal reworking of Dadaism. ;)
*/joke*
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If you're going to have a discussion about certain portions of the web site not working, the RPG forum isn't necessarily the best place to do it, assuming you want it to get noticed by me.
I'll look at it when I get a chance today.
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Hey, man with wierd name, you ever play Mage: the Ascension?
White Wolf used Ars Magica as a (very) loose template for the first edition of mage. Mage is... incredible. :)
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Yes, Mage does rock!
The one thing I found missing from the review was the excellent troupe play system it pushes. Each member of your group creates three different characters (a mage, a high ranking secular person, and a servant) and you choose which to play at the start of each game as your other characters are doing other things. I love it!
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Yeah, that's the most intriguing part of the system for me, too. I was going to mention it in an editor's note, but I didn't because I wasn't sure if they still had it in the fourth edition. Maybe I should go back and add it in there.
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I've played with M:TA, and found it intriguing, but it simply didn't have the sense of scale and grounding that arranging assassinations of the local lords did in Ars Magica. What I found interesting is that it allowed for even more possibility than Ars Magica, but at the same time they wanted to sell you zillions of faction and tradition books which really didn't add much. Again, it just doesn't compare to the excellent sense of scale that's possible in Ars Magica (and few other RPGs), because it allows you to dive right into medieval or any other pre-gunpowder history. You can kludge it into pretty much any other game you like, but Ars Magica is built for it, and it shows with elements like the covenant creation rules and such. Visiting Rome or southern France during the declaration of the Albigensian crusade is a great way to throw something completely different at a gaming group that thinks it has seen it all - big events happen where the players can't possibly deal with the entire thing from start to finish. This gives the player a unique freedom at the same time because it isn't strictly history, and you are decidedly not bound by 'normal' human limitations. (Unless you think we can all toss fireballs and lightning bolts from our fingertips.)
The idea of troupe play is still present, and although I don't remember the details too well, I think there's still some emphasis on having both a companion and a magus. Still, if you're going to write up every character that's likely to need a character sheet for a moderate covenant, chances are high that you'll end up with a pile of grogs so thick it outweighs the stack of magi and companion paper (if you did each on a separate sheet anyway). The number of grogs involved gets awe inspiring after a while; a small guard detachment, a kitchen staff, some local farmers, a leatherworker, maybe a metalsmith, probably several different kinds of craftspeope, definitely a mason or three and some carpenters, and all of a sudden you're dealing with enough people to form a respectably sized mob.
Another factor to consider is that character generation really is a lengthy process even once you've become familiar with it; there are no simple characters, unless you do something drastic like chopping the virtues & flaws system. Considering the vast number of extras needed, the group controller (on this matter) will end up either spending weeks drawing up characters and background, or starting a regular, "make a grog" period at the beginning of each gaming session. (This was my solution.)
On the idea of rotating storyguides - I found in practice that it often doesn't work too well, because in most groups there really is only one person (if that) capable of running a game in Mythic Europe without forgetting or overdoing either the mythic, or the Europe part. By all means farm out creation of NPCs, and encourage the players to think up the various things they'll want to do in establishing and protecting their covenant. Certainly my experience didn't run like a serial set of AD&D modules - aware players, intrigued by the scope to go visit the local fishing village, aren't going to settle for being railroaded through a typical dungeon-crawl "plot" more than once in a while.
One suggestion I'll make which I found very useful for bringing home the perspective idea (which isn't that easy because not many of us really understand the way politics works in any time period that well beyond the surface), is to as evil GM occasionally break out a set of character sheets for one of the groups they run into during the game. For instance, an older covenant of magi, a noble court, a group of scheming seelie, a dragons' moot... Mythic Europe is big, and there is no more effective way to make this understood than to have the players deal firsthand from the perspectives of other groups. Then roleplay them going through a covenant meeting or the like where they discuss standard business, or deal with a routine matter; it lessens the focus on the player covenant, but it really helps bring alive the immense interweaved events of a true world.