Momo has the right of it. It basically doesn't matter how vague the spell creation rules are for the pre-made spells. I mean, in Ars Magica they are
very vague and totally open to interpretation. But it doesn't
matter, because spells are created during downtime and you don't have to interrupt the flow of the game to discuss the nature of platonic ideals and shit.
Now what's especially hilarious about HTH's tirade is how thoroughly he "own goaled" himself.
HTH wrote:Seriously though - you actually think having green skin is a normal standard part of being a human? Really? You seem to be confused about people who develop green skin vs actually being born with it. Your interpretation of natural is not how people who play the game think about it.
Gangrene is an infection. Perdo corpus. Dying your skin with leaves is creo herbam or aquam. external. Anemia is an affliction. Pedro corpus. You are blowing the level ambiguity all out of proportion. I bodybuild and eat lots of GLV and have never heard of anyone ever getting good green skin from that offline and online.
Here's the thing: turning someone's skin green is an example in the book of something you
can do with Muto on the grounds that it is "not natural." You can count the number of actual Muto examples on the fingers of one hand, and that is one of them. HTH's task was to explain a rubric to define how a trait which could very plausibly appear in a real live human under a variety of circumstances would nevertheless be defined as
unnatural. That was fucking it.
Instead what he did was to rant about how disease states and vegetable dyes were the province of other magic categories altogether. So apparently
his claim is that Muto can do absolutely fucking
anything, on the grounds that any effect you might want to accomplish with any other magic category would therefore not be natural and would therefore be a thing you could apply with Muto. So since it is not in your nature to be sick, you can apply the effects of any disease state with Muto. And since it is not in your nature to be covered with plant products, you can cover yourself with plant products with Muto. And so on.
HTH lost the plot and started arguing the exact opposite of what he was supposed to argue, which was that Muto had
clear boundaries. Instead, he effectively argued that it has
no boundaries.
Lich Loved wrote:Setting aside the obvious issues with the spontanious casting rules, can we get back to discussing the rest of the system?
Where can I get some reasonable non-wanky reviews of the system that might intrigue me to give it a try? Is there anything else a burned out d20 player should know before delving in? Are there any essential books to obtain / stay away from when investigating the system?
Well, as you can tell from all the dumbasses who jump up to "defend" it, Ars Magica attracts the worst sort of naval gazing hipster bullshitters you can imagine. Ars Magica was made by the people who became White Wolf before they were White Wolf, which means that you're basically dealing with White Wolf fans who liked White Wolf before it "sold out" with
Masquerade. Holy. Fucking. Shit. Pretentious hipsterism at a level you can't even imagine. The pretentious bullshit gets worse with every new edition because the fanboys have more to remind you about how they liked the game when it was on vinyl or some shit.
That being said, it's basically Cyberpunk 2020 in fantasy format. I'll probably get a lot of flak for that comparison, but there really aren't that many twists you can pull on a d10 system against a variable TN. It's not super crunchy, but it's pretty fast.
The magic system is, as we've established repeatedly by the testimony of fanbois trying and failing to claim otherwise, a clusterfuck. It's evocative and thematic, but even five editions in no one can tell you what the fucking spell schools
do. It's kind of a problem. For the spontaneous magic, it's a huge problem because you're supposed to write the spell effects in the middle of the action and that doesn't fucking work. For the premade spells, it scarcely matters at all.
The Troupe system is very innovative and cool. By rotating through playing Quadratic Wizards, Linear Fighters, and piles of Mooks, the game manages to
solve the Linear Warriors / Quadratic Wizards problem. Wizards get to be better than you, but the game as a whole remains balanced. That's an achievement worthy of high praise.
-Username17
