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Ars Magica RPG

RPG Name: Ars Magica

Description: Ars Magica RPG Lion Rampant (editions 1 & 2)

What are your reviews for this category of role-playing game? Would Ars Magica play by post work well? Do you think you can play this easily for a first time get together or are the rules too intense?

Played As: Ars Magica PBP RPG? or See more RPG systems

RPG Magica Ars

Ars Magica presents one of my favorite magic systems, conceptually. One in essence forms a magical sentence using ten Forms, (Animal, Herbam, Mentem and others) as the nouns. For verbs, one uses one of five Techniques (Rego, Creo, Muto and others.) The resulting "Sentence" is the spell one casts.

While I love the concept of the system, mechanically, I find it a bit clunky. It is math heavy, although most of the calculation is done before play. Rote magic (Spells one has committed to memory) are effective, but spontaneous spells are weak at early stages of development.

The world is deep, developed and historically accurate. In all the games I've read, I have yet to see a system that more accurately presents the sterotype of a western, European style wizard. If the system were more to my taste, this would be one of my favorite games. As a play by post game, I think it could work well.