What book(s) other than the core rule book do I need??

I noticed several that I thought would be necessary:
The Mysteries
The Wizard's Grimoire, Revised Edition
Mythic Europe
The Medieval Handbook
A Medieval Tapestry
Houses of Hermes
...Possibly others as well...

So are there any that are 'more' important/necessary than other
books?

I would not be buying *ALL* of them at one time....well maybe quite a few of them! :-)

I would have posted this to the Ars Magica Mailing List, but cannot access my email as easy as the forum.

Thanks in advance !!

* Art *

The core rulebook. I think you should encourage a couple of your players to buy this book too. The spell guidelines are often referenced to a lot during play, so one between two would keep things reasonable.

Houses of Hermes and WGRE are both good for magi and Order background. However, beware the spells in WGRE they are not well-playtested.

Hedge Magic will be useful as a SG and one of the Tribunal Books should give you a place to start.

Beyond that, The Mysteries will be good for developing a saga, but isn't required to startup. In fact for players new to ArsM, I'd not add the complication straight away.

My recommondation is you need the core book. After that it depends on what you want.

Houses of Hermes is darn useful becase it covers the Order of hermes, the ficitional entity of wizards that the characters belong to

The Mysteries is the best book ever. Honest.

Wizard's Grimorie is a real mixed bag. Some useful additions to rules, and some horrible. What it is valuable for is a bunch more information on the Order. I still consider this to be pretty necessary,since half the book is about the Order and the life of a mage.

After that, it depends on your own needs.

Then is suggested to have the Tribunal Book where you play your Saga.

Last but not the least , you could need a "Medieval Handbook" or other good History book in order to understand the medieval paradigm.

A good history book any day over Medieval Hadboo. I'm not even sure if its a matter of content, but hopefully the history book will be readable. Medieval Handbook is cripled by terible layout, font and filler.

[[I suggest deeply also "Faeries", it's a foundamental book to uderstand Fearies' world. ]]

If you are planning on using Faeries heavily in your saga than Faeries is a great book to have. For any game to be honest. If Faeries aren't your favorite its not that useful.

Jere

First, obviously, the core rules. You should still be able to find softcover and hardcover out there. (In fact, Warehouse 23 should soon have some scuffed/shopworn/lightly damaged softcovers we found around the warehouse, with special pricing.) Ideally, every player should have a copy.

Second, the Wizard's Grimoire (Revised). Arguments may swing pro and con, but it's probably the best selling supplement in the line because it really is broadly useful for players and storyguides.

The Mysteries has proven to be very popular among ArM players. Like the Grimoire, it's a great way to add more to your magus characters.

From here on, it's all pretty optional.

I'd suggest a tribunal book, if your troupe has figured out where you want to locate your covenant. A tribunal book will give you the broad outlines of an environment in which to create your saga, with ready-made NPC covenants, story ideas, and the basics of regional history. Think of it as a launching point for your own further research and reading.

You might consider what I might call "companion" books -- books that cover major non-magus roles in the saga, such as Kabbalah: Mythic Judaism, Hedge Magic, and Ordo Nobilis.

Faeries is highly recommended, but may be getting hard to find (it's out of print). It is available for sale on www.rpgnow.com as PDF download, though.

Finally, consider picking up an adventure, to kick things off in your game.

The only book I would recommend is the core rulebook. Reason I say that is most likely because I started playing before these books came out and my interpretation of magic and the hermetic order is a quite a bit different than it was later portrayed as.

The other books are a great help if you want to completely mirror the 'norm' Ars Magica environment, but my game has Orcs, Goblins, Trolls (not the Faerie type either) and has a high 'fantasy' level running through it.

Ars Magica is the BEST system (especially with magic) in the world and you just can't go back to playing games like AD&D once you see how the magic system is, but if you go 'by the books' on alot of issues your players (if they're use to a more 'fantasy' style of playing) will bore quickly as you spend months of out-of-game time to learn a couple of spells or increase some of your arts.

The only books I really use, aside from the corebook, is the Grimiore for the additional spells. I am sure that the system is nice for either novice or people looking for 'realism' in magic (paradoxical statement) but I almost lost my story when I told my players why they werent able to learn new spells yet after the 3rd game. We had to quickly improvise the rules to be more 'fantastic'. This meant lower starting characters since you can start out as the equivalent of a 5th level (or higher) type character in AD&D. Now I have a strongly devoted group to the game who are currently on a quest to defeat the Church of the Sun which, they've just discovered, is a front for a slave operation controlled by a Beholder with a covenant of Ratkin Shamans. :P

Sorry for the long speel, to summarize, you only want those books if you want to follow their world as your own. If you're creative enough, you're better off with just the core-book (the spell/magic system, the combat system, and their character creation system (which, like I said, could be downsized alot if you do something similar to what I've done))

Sphynx

As for books, well I would recommend

Core Rules
Houses of Hermes
Grimoire
Mysteries
Medieval Handbook
Tribunal setting - I strongly recommend Rome (more later)
Medieval Bestiary

Okay, the first three for obvious reasons.

Mysteries because there is so much information there that you can thread through a saga. You don't have to understand the whole thing (which is a relief to starting players) but you can forshadow lots of stuff and include it as you go on (the problem with Mysteries we have in our troupe is the "well, where did that come from" syndrome). It really fleshes out the various practices of magic.

Med Handbook is a fantastic read and gives a huge amount of flavour. It mentions cities and places that will inspire you to take your characters out beyond their covenant.

Okay, so why Rome? Why not Stonehenge. Aside from the fact that I have an Italy fixation, when we started our saga recently, we asked the question "where do we set it". I suggested Stonehenge as we had the book and we lived there. I thought it would fun and easy. Others said, "no, lets play somewhere we have no connection to, that'll make it seem all the more different". They were right.

The Roman Tribunal is filled with loads of mundane conflict, diabolic influence and Hermetic intrigues. Not to mention that the book descrips 3 Domus Magna. The setting, with is lack of magical resources, will make your characters work hard and you can through all sorts of things at them.

One last point, it shows just how much the Oath and the law can be skirted around. I have heard players say "I want to do X, but it is against Hermetic Law". This book says, "well, it ain't wrong if you don't get caught".

Last book; Medieval Bestiary because there loads of little story and encounter leads in there. Just the thing when you need some inspiration.

Hope it helps.

I will be picking up several books, though I haven't really discussed with my group about the location for a tribunal yet. It will be a bit of a tricky sell, but I'll get them to give it a try.

I do have it lucky, with a very good FLGS (Phantom of the Attic) here in Pittsburgh. Though I will order some of it online
(http://www.gamersattic.com).

My first order will most likely be:
Core Book
Houses of Hermes
The Medieval Bestiary
Medieval Handbook
The Mysteries
The Wizard's Grimoire, Revised Edition
Plus a Tribunal book

Yeah, it's a bit of money, but hey I have some put away for this. :-)

I should have made it a clear in my original post that this is FAR from my first RPG. I always meant to pick up Ars Magica, but never got around to it, well that will change ! ;-)

I just have to balance this with my soon to be purchase of an iPod!
:-)

Well thanks to everyone for the advice !

* Art *

The Core rules

The Wizard's Grimoire Revised and

Houses of Hermes

Then, depending on your precise needs, you can take a look at other books. If you wanted to set the saga in England, you could take a look at Heirs to Merlin. If you wanted a lot of occultish cults and secret societies, then look at The Mysteries. If you wanted to involve a lot of machinations with the nobility or faeries, then look at Ordo Nobilis and Faeries Revised.

The Medieval Bestiary is a fine book, but I've made do with the animals in the back of the core books for over a year (although I do own tMB).

Hedge Magic is only needed if you want to involve non-Hermetic magic.

A Medieval Tapestry isn't useful at all IMO, unless you really like the Templars (and there are better books about the Templars than A Medieval Tapestry).

Don't bother too much with any books on the Middle Ages. The Core Rulebook tells you everything you need to know. Unless you are a history student, it shouldn't be that important, as the Order of Hermes is ahistorical as it is.

~Alex

I haven't visited the store, but I've talked on the phone with those guys several times over the years, and hear very good things about them! Congrats on having a good FLGS (and thank you for supporting them!).