Ars Magica/Fantasy Grounds Questions

[Thales Isokrates]

Dear all

I hope there are Ars Magica DM's/players reading this! But other's opinions are also most welcome!

I love Fantasy Grounds and I love Ars Magica.

Now I am trying to integrate the two.

I like how smoothly 5e D&D runs on FG, and I wish the same would be possible for Ars Magica.

Now I know a certain 'Obe' (?) is delivering great work in developing an Ars Magica Ruleset for FG. I have installed that Ruleset in my FG. Now I am wondering, as I am new to Ars Magica, what will work and what not. What could be the annoyances, if any?

A 2nd option could be to adapt CoreRPG or MoreRPG to be usable for Ars Magica, but I do not know where to begin

A 3th option would be to use a d20 variant for Ars Magica on the D&d 5e Ruleset, but to me, although this sounds attractive if I think about the smoothness of D&d 5e on FG, it feels as if I am raping the game by doing that. I would prefer to play it in it's pure form.

A 4th option would be to defect to Roll20, because that platform is more freeform/ruleset agnostic, but then i loose the esthetics and automation of FG

Your advice would be more than appreciated!

Thales

[LordEntrails]

I don't play Ars Magica, so take that into account. So, comparing your options, here's what I think / how I would go about it;

CoreRPG vs. MoreCore - I wouldn't spend time on CoreRPG, from what I know, MC outperforms Core.

d20/5E variant, if the AM rules are very similar, then that might be a good consideration, but it doesn't sound like it so I don't think you would get the benefit of much of the 5E automation by switching over.

That leave the AM ruleset, MC and Roll20 as your first set of things to evaluate.

Looking at MC vs Roll20, with either of these you are going to lose the automation you seek, so I don't see any benefits to Roll20 over MC. So I'd keep MC as the preferred solution between those two.

That leaves the AM ruleset and MC. I'd explore the Ars Magica ruleset and see if it gets you what you want, if not then I'd go setup MoreCore or maybe even make a theme for it. That's how I would approach it.

[viresanimi]

The Ars Magica ruleset is really really old. I do not consider it an option.

MoreCore is great and it wouldn't be farfetched to think that Damned would implement stress die functionality into it, if asked nicely. Personally I don't use MC. Because I can't skin all of it and I am strange like that. Most of what you need can be done with Core / Morecore, but with no automation but you can keep track of things.

Personally I loooove Ars Magica. Some of my best gaming has been in that world and I am so bummed that there is no good ruleset for it in FG. I have even considered just having notes in to keep track of things, as if using (digital)paper. In the spirit of Ars Magica. It wouldn't be so bad I think. But that is just me.

I would recommed MoreCore. Set up a few standard character sheets and export / import it as needed. The same with NPC sheets and whatever else you need. Jusk make a standard one and copy it, for fast use.

I think I have a theme for Ars Magica lying around somewhere, that I can tweak for MoreCore. Nudge me if you want me to look into that.


Vires Animi

[Thales Isokrates]

Thanks guys for your answers!

Now a few things come to my mind:

There is a d20 conversion for Ars Magica. It is not perfect but it exists. So that should let me run it on the FG 5e Ruleset, doesn't it?

Second, why would, according to you, playing Ars Magica on Roll20, without friction as it is ruleset agnostic and non-automated, be more awful than running it on an incomplete MoreCore where one bumps into inconveniences/incompatibilities? For me such incompatibilities can easily become game breaking. But that differs from one person to the other of course...

[LordEntrails]

Well, running the d20 version using the 5E ruleset, are the mechanics the same? Does the character sheet have the same fields or are their fields you need that are not in 5E? The names of the skills and weapon traits the same? Are their unique effects and spells that do things that 5E spells don't do? Not that you can't do those things, but they won't have automation.

Not sure what you mean by MoreCore being incomplete. I mean with MC you can create sheets with all the fields on them. Are their die rolls you need that MC doesn't have and you don't think you can get added? I guess my limited familiarity with both MC and Roll20 makes me wonder what Roll20 can do that MC can't.

[viresanimi]

When it comes to Ars Magica, I don't know if Roll20 won't be a better solution, when it comes to charactersheets etc.

What I do know (because I've used Roll20 too), is that R20 is terrible when it comes to keeping notes and organizing a campaign compared to FG. I will always. No matter what, use FG for my games. Even if a game is barely supported, FG will make my life as a GM much much much easier, since I can organize things the way I want to. Quick and easy.

That's just my take on it.


Vires Animi


Edit: @LordEntrails: It is definately possible to set up charactersheets in MoreCore. In Ars Magica you can even make exactly ½ of the roll types work, right out of the gate. No problems. The only issue is the "stress die" which is rather complicated and need the player to do some fun math. I mean. I've roll 81 on a 10 sided die. *grins*

Anyhooo... normal rolls. Yeah. They work just fine in MoreCore.

[Thales Isokrates]

Well with D20 in 5e I actually meant converting that existing ARMd20 to 5e myself - I think jumping from d20 to 5e is not such a pain.

Probably Morecore Can do it all, if all the correct modding/coding/scripting is being done. And at the moment I am not (yet) up to that, knowledge wise and as the story/content is of primary importance for me, I do not want to get bogged down too much in technical issues before I can start deepening the story.

So I think I'll have to choose between doing Ars Magica Sagas with 5e rules in FG or do Ars Magica as it is in Roll20 .

Later on when I know FG better I could learn some modding/scripting and try to adjust MoreCore for ARM up to the point that it feels right for me.

So i have to ask myself, is the idea of purity or the actual feel of the gameplay priority for me? Ofcourse using the original ruleset can add to the actual feel as well.

So it is a ARM-D&d5e+FG platform vs ARM5e+Roll20 game play question for me to answer . (sjee is life always about hard choices... ? )

[damned]

Hi Thales Isokrates I havent chimed in because (although I have a dozen AM books on my shelf) I have never used/played the system or even read the rules.

I am looking at the Stress die but exploding dice are complicated for me so Im still in early stages.

I have see the dice strings for AM on roll20 and they do appear to work from what I have seen - again not familiar with all the rulese/requirements.

MoreCore is very much a generic character sheet and combat tracker - I think it works pretty well but it definitely works better when you can do all the rolls from the character sheet and right now you cant do that for AM.

Hi viresanimi is there any particular part of MoreCore you are having trouble skinning? If you look at the extensions they replace around 6 or 7 elements (eg nice and quick) and completely change the look and feel of the table. There is absolutely no reason why you cant extend your theme to replace all the other items too. Have you see the MoreCore themes page? I have at least another 3 or 4 themes on my computer that I have yet to upload and Im sure others have some too.

From Champions to B/X D&D to Conan to City of Mist to DSR Espionage to Shadow of the Demon Lord, Pendragon, Bethica, Talislanta and many more...

[viresanimi]

Yep. Been looking and trying.

Where I gave up was the frame1.jpg (in frames). It doesn't seem to change anything in MoreCore. And I do believe that I couldn't remove the brown bar above images either. Been a while that I looked at it.

When I change stuff, I really try to change everything possible. I am obsessive like that. I am sure that there is a totally reasonably easy thing that I need to do, but so far its eluding me. And I don't really need MoreCore over Core for what I do currently, soooo...

While I am at it though, I must say what you have done with MoreCore is beastly amazing sir! My hat off to you.


Vires Animi

[damned]

MoreCore extension for Ars Magica by superteddy57
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post405174