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<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=utamaro010@yahoo.co.uk href="mailto:utamaro010@yahoo.co.uk">Andrew
Leitch</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG></STRONG>The
problem with Ars Magica is that PC's start off way too powerful compared to say,
the grogs. They seem almost like demi-gods. If they started off less powerful,
you wouldn't need to spend the entire night just reading up on
spells.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">KS: Well, I dunno. Each of the editions has a
different introduction, from the 1st to the 5th the introduction becomes more
defensive about the mages' being so powerful compared to everyone else. It seems
like the authours got abused by a lot of point-buy system fans. "But we should
all be EQUAL." Communism in roleplaying game design? Is it really
necessary? </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>AL: My experience went: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"What sort of character do you want?"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"Well, can I be a fighter?"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>KS: I think you missed something - the game title.
It's called "Art of Magic," and you ask about being a fighter. That's like
playing _Vampire_ and saying, "can I be like Buffy?" It's like playing _Recon_
and asking if you can be a hippy pacifist. Sure, you can, but it completely
defeats the purpose of the game itself.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> So what we're talking about
isn't a failing of the game itself. It's simply that you, in this example, don't
want to play a mage. Which means you're playing the wrong game. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> It's much like the time I went
to a con, got pushed into playing _Vampire_, and when roleplaying the Embrace,
my sportsman character reached down into his sports bag, whipped out a cricket
stump, and staked the vampire Embracing him. It rather shocked the goth GM, I
can tell you. And of course I was missing the entire point of the game. If I
didn't want to play a vampire, I shouldn't have played the game called
"vampire." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> If you don't want to play a
mage, why do you sit down to play a game called "Art of Magic"? I honestly can't
see how that's a failing of the game. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> Games are tools. Each tool is
designed to do a certain job well. If you ask for a spanner and then complain it
makes a poor hammer, that's not the fault of the guy who designed the spanner,
or the guy who handed it to you - it'</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>s your fault
for asking for a spanner when you wanted a hammer. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>AL: They should have gone for spell lists rather
than spell groups. That way you only had to make a choice from 20 spell lists,
rather 2000 spells. You could buy the first 3 or 4 spells in each list and be
done with it. (Maybe I'm recalling this wrong though...).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>KS: Ah, a player of _Rolemaster_, I see:D I think
you forget the experience many people had with that, which was, "but I don't
WANT the whole friggin list, just this one spell, why should I pay for ten
spells when I only want one?"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>AL: There's not much encouragement for playing good
characters either, when the central ethos of the various magic guilds seems to
be "don't get caught" rather than "don't do". </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>KS: Er, not quite. Many people have to do good in
secret, or at least quietly. Secrecy does not spontaneously produce evil.
Amensty International has to be sneaky sometimes:)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a brilliant
system. I was having a look at the rulebooks over the weekend, overall it's a
terrible, clunky, messy system. But it succeeded in its central aim, which was
to make the mages the stars of the show. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Cheers,<BR>Kyle<BR>Better Mousetrap Games<BR>home
of d4-d4 and other stuff<BR><A
href="http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=339">http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=339</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>