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An online Ars Magica session


Adrian

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Hello all! A few of us poked our heads together on how to aid the kickstarter, an idea was to simply play the game and presenting it here on the forums for all to see (and hopefully get hooked!).

 

I asked how the people at Atlas Games' forum felt and fortunately someone has already offered to host a game for us. We may have to fiddle a bit about the actual hows and whens, but just to get the ball rolling. Who would want to partake in this event? Please say if you want in this thread. It may not be first come first served but we hope to make it as fair as we can. I should perhaps mention that it will likely be up to 6 people max. With luck we might even start a few games though, so please don't hold back.

 

 

If you would add which time and days you are most available it will likely help in the long run :)

 

 

I also invited a few at the Atlas Games' forum to post (some of) their game(s) here to perhaps lend some inspiration.

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I can do it on Tuesday and Thursday, weekend will depend on luck. From noon to midnight (gmt -5)

 

Might be able to do Wednesday or Friday depending on how other things goes. From evening to midnight (gmt -5)

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Well nothing is set in stone yet! By the look of things we might be better of making two groups to cater to our varied time zones ;)

 

For now though, please don't hesitate to sign up. I can almost guarantee that no one has died from joining a game of Ars Magica (Admittedly, I haven't checked, but it sounds reasonable)! I'll at least leave it open for the weekend and see if we can't get a few more.

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I am not shutting the gate just yet, but to give a view of things:

 

We got six people currently and hour host, two at gmt+10, two at gmt+2, our host at gmt+1 and one at gmt-4 and -5. (as a fun fact, we are almost the furthest apart that we can get pure time-zone wise considering we are divided into three parties - had each of us been 8 hours apart it would have been perfect ;))

 

 

As example:

Assuming we began at noon GMT it would then be 10pm in Australia and the related areas, 2pm in central Europe and that time zone, 1pm for our host, and 8am and 7am respectively.

 

Alternatively, if we opperate from gmt-5 noon. It would then be 7pm in central Europe and 3am (the next day) in Australia.

 

Australian noon gives 2am CET, and 7pm the previous day. I'll be the first to admit my math may be off (will look it over in the morning to be sure). Please consider again how flexible you can be in light of this though.

 

I am not saying that these are the times we can play, but it does make it easier to wiggle, adding a few hours or subtracting.

 

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That said, I am up for whenever as long as it is weekend or as long as I avoid the area of 7am-16pm weekdays.

 

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I hope you will all forgive me for sending a few emails around tomorrow (or later today, for those already into the 28th) with a bit of a heads up and just to be sure if I got the right time. It would suck if we decide to start a meeting and someone missed it due something so small.

 

Also, if someone knows a good place that could host such a thing then feel free to share it. I was thinking Skype or such could host a group, but I am very much open to suggestions. (It's my first time arranging anything like this, so I may not be seeing all related problems) I'd say a more open forum would be great, but I don't know of any specifics who host such.

 

I wish you all a good night, or morning, or just somewhat late noon. :)

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Sweet, I was hoping to get the ball rolling around then (I admit I had hoped before that but given our time tables.. yeah).

 

Also, rise and shine this morning I realized the folly of my evening post (the one above) as it may all very well be messed up by daylight saving... humm... wellp, I'll send some PMs (which gives turn to an email I think/hope) about the times.

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Well, sent some PMs, to all I think, if not don't lynch me please. Timing idea I am working out of is the top most of the examples I gave, I expect that we are somewhat confined to weekends though, as most of us likely have a day-job/school/whatever that would conflict with late morning to afternoon on weekdays.

If I messed up and gave you the wrong time then I am sorry for any confusion! Due to daylights savings we may adjust a bit, and as I said, nothing is set in stone. If we can't make it at those times then we'll have to rethink it.

 

Please consider if you know a chat area or the likes which would be well suited for our purpose. Thanks in advance!

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Yeah, Atlas is in the US, the line editor is in Japan, and on some books half the authors are in Australia.

 

The Ars Magica author pool is statistically disproportionately Australian. No-one is quite sure why, as far as I can tell.

 

 

 

I'm happy to have the game divided into sections, but I'm also happy to pull a an all nighter to play in CJ's game, so long as it is Friday or Saturday night my time.

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I know IRC did have some Chat channels with dice generator.

I prefer this one. Easy to use and no problem for me at all. I know how to use dice generator too if anyone want to learn it.

 

We could try splitting the group to weekday and weekend and maybe try to get more hour with two rounds of day and night.

 

If there's barely any matches, then we could try pbp (Play by Post) format, which is forum post by post gaming, but this will be the slowest thing ever depend on how often the crew posts.

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In regards to time, and splitting the group up:

 

So far everyone save Schwartzbart seems able to make it next Saturday 12 noon GMT. I think it would be the best to try then, though I need a reply from cj to be perfectly sure.

 

I may be wrong but, with only 7 people splitting the group further seems too small, somehow. But it may be quite normal for this sort of game?

An added problem would be that Timothy's and Schwartzbart's times are incompatible. Splitting it up would likely mean a EU and Australian team, with our American plays joining whichever fitting their time scheme I suppose.

 

For the Americans it would mean a time difference of ~5-7 hours to the EU team and ~7-9 hours to the Australians. With our current numbers being what they are.. I just think we would get very short on numbers.

 

 

Personally I vote for we try it this Saturday (the 3rd of November) and see how far we get. If we hardly get anywhere mainly due to time constraints then I'll submit to wisdom. ;)

 

 

As for Forums/chat

 

I'm a bit of a newb (here as well hehe) so IRC sounds fine. Is this the same as mIRC or something different? Also, if we try then then I'd appreciate if you could show me the random dice generator Nyaa :)

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Cj.23 I saw on the Atlas forum for Ars Magica that you said you would be doing a game where the players would be apprentices. I got the rulebook today and have been skimming mainly the character creation section, and it doesn't have a section exactly for apprentices, though companion might fit it best.

 

What will players be able to use to create their character?

 

Also, what will players do in this scenario of being apprentices. I personally can't think of stuff they can do yet at the same time be reasonable to do, though it might just be due to my lack of playing the game and in truth are many things they can do.

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I may be wrong but, with only 7 people splitting the group further seems too small, somehow.

I figure that 7 mages might break the game balance but it's just a guess.

 

I'm a bit of a newb (here as well hehe) so IRC sounds fine. Is this the same as mIRC or something different?

mIRC is just a program that connect to IRC, so it's the exact same thing.

 

What will players be able to use to create their character?

I think our first session is about helping each other build their char, but having the rule layout in advance is nice too.

 

I recommend you all grab the metacreator demo and play with it a bit, it contain description for all the skill and stuff so it's a nice summery.

 

Edit: Download link. The demo got EVERYTHING (except expansion stuff) but you can't save or print sheet.

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I may be wrong but, with only 7 people splitting the group further seems too small, somehow. But it may be quite normal for this sort of game?

From my general pen & paper expirience I only can tell that 3-4 player is the optimal group size any thing past 4 will be hard for the GM.

I'm not sure about Ars Magica but keeping in mind that many people not even know the rules small groups are to prefer over larger groups and the GM gave a limit of maximum 6 (That whats the limit a realy good GM might be able to handle in other Pen & Paper RPGs as well).

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If it is Saturday though, only six of us will be able to attend (and cj, hopefully!) so we are at the MAX currently, not above it.

 

If you guys are really intent on this splitting up then I'll play along but meh. Will check in later this evening see how it goes.

 

 

To give a bit of perspective, we got 2 around gmt-5, about 4 near gmt, and 2 with gmt+10

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Sorry if I came across a bit.. well angry. Just a bit busy (and sadly not with Ars Magica ;)). But if you would prefer to split up then that is fine.

 

As I said I am a new to this so if we should be less in a group then that is fine. I think Timothy offered to lead a second group if it came to that.

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