A kind of catch-all thread to cover general new supplement questions and comments.

I'm really looking forward to getting Guardians of the Forests but I can't seem to find it on warehouse 23. The "buy now" button takes me to an empty shopping cart.

Do we know anything about release dates?

In this case, we're not so much victims of the printer's schedule as our own schedule. Specifically, in the case of Guardians of the Forests, *my* schedule, which of late has been pretty full of things like packing boxes of ArM5 and Gloom, and taking a week of vacation.

Things are proceeding on GOTF, but it's impossible for it to go to press before mid-February, simply because I didn't get artwork assigned early enough. The original timetable for the book's production was based on us having a full-time staff artist/layout/graphic design person...who is no longer here.

At this point, I'd be happy to see the book arrive in stores before the end of March. :(

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

Oh, speaking of Warehouse 23 -- in general, we try to get them set up to accept pre-orders after we've sent a book to press. That's usually 4-6 weeks prior to release. I don't think it's a good idea to accept order commitments from consumers earlier than that (especially if there can be delays as in the case of GOTF).

-jn

" good supplements are Dark ages: fae and mage "

While I've never looked closely at these books I can not imagine that they'd be nearly as useful as the large library of Ars magica titles availible from Atlas or issues of the PDF fanzine Hermes Portal.

I did breifly page through dark ages mage last week. The setting of the game is significantly different. If you are looking for general medieval setting information, I'd recomend the fourth edition Ars books, and the 3rd edition Ars supplement medieval handbook in preference to any of the dark ages line. Another good choice are the Life in a Medieval castle/town/etc books by Guiles and Guiles

Well yes, why would you use the SETTING of DA: mage?

But there is something ars magica does not tell, its the non hermetic mages, or perhaps they do but Da mage is quite thorough on that subject and has lots of useful ideas that players should NOT expect.

And faerie book works as good inspiration about faeries nature and powers, but setting is always ars magica first and dafae second.

Still, I have not read anything that would counter DA: fae's setting material.

p.s. It costs me money to buy atlas books but it's free to read books I own...

" Another good choice are the Life in a Medieval castle/town/etc books by Guiles and Guiles."

Joseph and Frances Gies. :)

I found the DA Mage rules to be almost unusable in play. A group of four players with Hermetic characters, and the DA:Vampire rule-set saw a game bogged down completely any time they wanted to do an effect. It was an extremely cumbersome system.

I found the background (specifically that in the Companion) more interesting and useful.

Don't know about ArM5.

That said, I'm looking forward to getting GotF and BCoC, as well as Mysteries REV, and in the meant time, Hermes Portal is a fantastic resource.

"But there is something ars magica does not tell, its the non hermetic mages, or perhaps they do but Da mage is quite thorough on that subject and has lots of useful ideas that players should NOT expect."

There were lots of non hermetic magic traditions published for fourth edition. There is a pagan tradition and a shamantic tradition in Dragon and the Bear, there are norse traditions in Ultima Thule and Land of fire and Ice. There are Middle-eastern traditions in the Levant book (Land of Burning sands? I don't recall the name). There is a great book on Kaballaistic mages and medieval judaism. There is the hedge magic book that is all about minor magical traditions that are applicable to most of Central europe.

There's plenty of very Ars appropriate stuff out there that need only be adapted to the new edition rather than adaping from a different system and a different setting.

"p.s. It costs me money to buy atlas books but it's free to read books I own..."

I had read your post with the thought that it was a recomendation for readers to get their hands on DA mage and DA Fae for Ars background. While these two books most likely have a great deal of material that can be adapted, If you're looking to aquire material to enrich your Ars game I believe that the library of previously published Ars Magica books is full of excellent Ars material. You would be wise to check it out before looking to other games.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that there is nothing of potential value in the WW books that you recomend.

"I'm not trying to convince anyone that there is nothing of potential value in the WW books that you recomend."

As we know there are lots of non rpg books with a lot of potential value for ideas.

If I get to run a campaing, it must happen in poland because my (polish) wife has a lot of books about castles and polish history.

Good material.

The Secret of flower of life is also a good book but it works mostly only for modern age campaings.

p.s. I should take a look on those atlas books because I burned my fingers with one hedge wizard book that was horrible. If those books are even nearly as good as this 5th edition, they must be good.

I can recommend any white wolf book, because they have certain minimum quality that you can expect them to achieve and exceed.
(too big to publish hasty work.) Not meaning to compare it to Atlas because I have less experience with it.

"I can recommend any white wolf book, because they have certain minimum quality that you can expect them to achieve and exceed.
(too big to publish hasty work.)"

I do not share this opinion. I have purchased a few WW books that I found significantly inferior to even the worst (IMO) books that Atlas has put out for Ars Magica thus far. To be clear, none of these books were associated with the Dark Age line (I haven't really had too much exposure to the dark age games). Certainly White Wolf has also put out many excellent books as well.

Wizard's Grimoire is the most needed text. I am tired of creating my own spells and doing the math. We need more spells, please. The rest of the stuff in the Grimoire was mediocre.

The peripheral code stuff was very weak in my opinion. What's the point of even having a code when the peripheral code gives example after example of it being violated.

White wolf used to publish a lot of 'splat books' but got customers were so unhappy with them that they stopped that bad habit.

Now they only publish hard bound books worth of publishing.

I feel this debate has been sidetracked as it isn't about how good/bad WW's Dark Ages line is but about supplements to Ars Magica. The suitability of Dark Ages material should be discussed in another thread and I'll happily share my views there. Ok back to the subject; what do we know about the books they'll publish, and when. John has said March at the earliest for Guardians and I guess we can assume that True Lineages will also be delayed. After Guardians of the Forest, there's three tribunals that haven't been detailed: Hibernia, Thebes and Transylvania. The goal was 4 books a year, so let's hope that Atlas gets a new house artist ASAP! So if everything goes well I guess that the publishing schedule would look something like this:
2005
March: Guardians of the Forest: Rhine
Early Summer(?): Houses of Hermes book 1: True Lineages
Autumn: Realm book 1:The Divine
Late 2005/Early 2006: The Mysteries Revised
2006
HoH book 2: (This NEEDS to be Mystery Cults)
Realm Book 2: (Infernal or hopefully Magic)
Tribunal Book?
The Wizards Grimoire ReRevised?
2007
HoH book 3:(Or better, both is published in 2006?)
Realm book 3:
Tribunal book?
Tales of the Dark Ages Revised? (or another collection of stories?)
2008
Realm Book 4:(probably Faerie)

I wonder if Tremere is going to be vampiric again, that will probably have much to say for a Transylvanian book. Thebes and Hibernia first please!
HOT

>Tribunal Book?

I don't think there will be any more, according to AG.

"there's three tribunals that haven't been detailed: Hibernia, Thebes and Transylvania."

You forget Normandy and Provence (Addmitedly there was a substantial bit published in second and third editions for Provence but it's weak on the history side of things.)

I think the quote was that they weren't planing on more tribunal books for the next four years.

I'm hoping that the mystery cult house book is next in line after the divine book. A third of the magi will now be involved in mystery cults and there are no inner mysteries for them. This might sell more back issues of Hermes Portal, but I don't think that it's good for new players.

This is not totally set in stone, but here's how the semi-set lineup looks:

1. Guardians of the Forests
2. HoH: True Lineages
3. Realms of Power: The Divine
4. The Mysteries (Revised)
5. Covenants
6. HoH: Mystery Cults
7. Realms of Power: The Infernal

Those are the books I am expecting to see, and in the order I expect we will release them. Of course things may be subject to change (and this list hasn't been handed out to distributors as official). But it should give folks an idea of what to look forward to over the next couple of years. :)

But I think I would want the new Mysteries rules worked out before they were applied to the mystery cult houses.

I think that is a little more realistic.

The Mysteries, is IMHO, a really important book, but it comes in at number 3, after 'The Wizards Grimoire'.

I think the Wizards Grimoire should have come in at number 2.

Easypeasy

What I'm missing is a 5th Editon Gamemasters' Screen.

Any word on that?

We have no plans to do a screen for 5th edition.

Our experience is the sales of screens are fairly mediocre, and they're expensive to manufacture (requiring custom cutting and folding, shrinwrapping, etc.), which in turn means that they don't tend to feel like they offer a good value to the buyer (at least not until several years have passed and a several-years-old MSRP seems reasonable in today's dollars).

Quoth John (AGman) Nephew:

> This is not totally set in stone, but here's how the semi-set
> lineup looks:
<SNIP>
6. HoH: Mystery Cults
<SNIP>
> Those are the books I am expecting to see, and in the order I
> expect we will release them.

GAH.

This is a signifigant problem! HOH:Mystery Cults is a
*NEEDED* book to play the Mystae-driven Houses much past
Gauntlet; even if they won't pass the first/outer Mystery,
they need the context and the direction to go.

That's 1/3 of the Houses that are rendered un-playable (in
a "fast" or "pulsed" Saga), or whose character-development/
plotlines may be rendered "invalid" or just strange, by a
book that's over a year from publication!

This is a Bad Thing.

I hope you *SERIOUSLY* reconsider this issue. Since several
Houses now *DEPEND* on "Mystery" rules, they become much less
optional/supplemental, much more "core".

Frankly, one of my biggest gripes about WotC's d20 product-lines
is how the classes semi-need the class-books (e.g. a "Fighter"
just from the core rulebook becomes increasingly eclipsed by one
who uses S&F). This situation is even worse for the ArM5 line,
since Mystae-progression is so important for those magi.

Maybe the core "Mystery" rules can be re-worked (& playtested!)
for 5e, then the HOH:MC and Mysteries Revised can be *written*
from the same playtested mechanical core? Either way, the HOH
book needs to come FIRST, and MR can (if needed) revise both
HOH:MC and the 4e "Mysteries".

I cannot express strongly enough (in polite language) how much
of a problem my Troupe finds the lack of rules to progress the
Mystery Houses...

- Steve S.

P.S. I'm an irregular reader here; I'd VERY much like replies
(from John Nephew or David Chart) e-mailed sms@sonic.net, not
just posted here... THANKS!

Well, there's not really much information I can provide, since I don't micromanage the editorial process. I seem to recall David recently telling me that he was in the process of finalizing the writers on the Infernal sourcebook. That should mean that both of the Mysteries books should be well underway. One or both might already be written by now.

I don't know the specific contents of either book (and won't until the final edited files get handed in for art and layout), so I'm not in a position to offer an opinion about how essential their contents are or what have you. Sorry.

"This is a signifigant problem! HOH:Mystery Cults is a
*NEEDED* book to play the Mystae-driven Houses much past
Gauntlet; even if they won't pass the first/outer Mystery,
they need the context and the direction to go.

That's 1/3 of the Houses that are rendered un-playable (in
a "fast" or "pulsed" Saga), or whose character-development/
plotlines may be rendered "invalid" or just strange, by a
book that's over a year from publication!

This is a Bad Thing."

I'm not in a position to know any inside knowlege either (In fact much much less so than John) but I suggest that you might look at the mystery cult writeups for these houses that are in the Hermes Portal fanzine.

While these are probably not the same mysteries as that we'll see for fifth edition I doubt that the writers of the new book will refrain from looking at them prior to writing their sections (I'd wager that much of the playtesting crew is already familiar with them). They might be a strong influence on what we'll see when the fifth ed. book gets published. I remember the Merinita mysteries article well enough to recomend it to you on its own merits as solid chunk of ideas upon which to base your fifth edition house rules.

Calm down, Steve.

The only book you NEED to play Ars is, in my opinion, the fifth edition rule book. In no way are you prevented from playing a Bjornaer/Criamon/Merinita/Verditius. They are no less playable than any of the other Houses.

What the lineage books will do is give you MORE options when playing those houses. My advice to you would be to make it up as you go along.

A quick example may be appropriate...

My Arm4 character has the Theurgy virtue as per the Mysteries. Dilema! How do I translate that? There are no rules yet so for the time being I've opted to treat it as a Minor Magical Focus with "Creatures of Might" or somesuch.

There's nothing stopping you guys from doing the same.

Mark

> The only book you NEED to play Ars is, in my opinion, the fifth
> edition rule book. In no way are you prevented from playing a
> Bjornaer/Criamon/Merinita/Verditius. They are no less playable
> than any of the other Houses.

As things stand now, I agree with you. Once lineage splatbooks
start coming out... <shrug> . I expect we'll disagree.

I know people who say that all you need to play DnD 3.x is the
core rulebook (PHB), but I think the class-splats are more than
merely "nice extra options": IME, if you want portability from
campaign to campaign and GM to GM (about the biggest d20 draw,
IMO; and about the only one that draws *me*), I've found that
the classbooks are widely-regarded (in my neck o' the woods) as
nearly-mandatory (to the point that "everybody has them").

> What the lineage books will do is give you MORE options when
> playing those houses. My advice to you would be to make it
> up as you go along.

And expect that the HOH:MC book will invalidate bunches of what
the Troupe "makes up". I dislike that, extremely. It's a big
part of what makes Tribunal-books a problem for some SG's and
Troupes: they put in a large amount of work, and discover that
the book they've been longing for, when it *FINALLY* comes out,
is incompatible with their Saga. >:-P

> A quick example may be appropriate...
>
> My Arm4 character has the Theurgy virtue as per the Mysteries.
> Dilema! How do I translate that? There are no rules yet so for
> the time being I've opted to treat it as a Minor Magical Focus
> with "Creatures of Might" or somesuch.
>
> There's nothing stopping you guys from doing the same.

Oh, I understand; if that works for you, more power to you. A few
questions: Is this character part of a Mystery Organization, with
(presumably) more Mysteries yet to unfold? Do you play in a "fast"
or "pulsed" Saga where your PC might reasonably expect to advance
to new Mysteries? Do you have plans for what those will be, and
the rules for acquiring those?

And finally, do you think it's reasonable for Atlas to point to
an ArM4 supplement (or a fanzine), and say "here, make up some
House Rules sorta based on these ideas..." for their shiny new
ArM5 product-line? Because in the end, that's the best they're
offering players of MC-House PC's, for the next while; and the
MC Houses look, to me, like the actual character-advancement needs
ArM5 Mystery-rules (of which there isn't a hint in the main book,
only the bald statement of their existence).

- Steve S.

Let's agree that we can't have all the books in one shot. That's a reasonable position. Then let's try and accept that decisions have had to be made on the order books need to come out.

For you, the mystery cults are a big sticking point but others might not be that interested and are looking forward to the book that is coming out.

As for the books invalidating our ideas... so what. I recently took some of our characters to Crintera, buried deep within a forest housed in a huge hall threaded through with trees and stone. Then I found out that it is actually supposed to be near the coast. Sucks to be me I guess. So what? The story went well and we have "our" crintera.

As to rules, the chances are, when Mysteries fifth gets released I may well want to retool the character. I think we're able to do that. There's nothing stopping me. For most sagas the prospect of having to come up with three more virtues for each of four houses just isn't a reality. If you're in the position of having to do that then good luck to you.

Post your ideas and I'm sure we'll jump in and help out. You never know, when cults book does get released, you might even complain that the rules are worse than your home-brewed set.

Mark