Bard Bloom (bard@bestweb.net)is starting a play by email ars magica "game". The reason that the word game appears in quotation marks in the previous sentance is that there will be very few of what are conventionally considered story elements in the game. The game will primarily provide a structure for some of us to play around with the amazingly fun and flexible laboratory rules. Players will create and advance magi by strict fifth edition rules optionally taking part in 3 year long contests to best achieve specific goals through the development of spells, items, or whatever. (So it will, in fact, be much more simialr to what most people think of as a game than a conventional RPG.)

I'll copy some of the posts from Bard on other lists below for those who are interested.

* Are you a Hermetic mage who has recently passed the
Gauntlet?

* Do you want to spent a delightful century or two in
labwork, study, and topics of interest to you personally?

* Would you like to live without undue interference by your
sodales, political annoyances of tribunal politics, or the
need to go out adventuring?

* Would you appreciate the presence of low-key (and entirely
optional) contests of intellect and laboratory work, for
those decades when your interest in your work for its own
sake pales?

* Would you like a life of safety and power in a high Magic
regio, protected but not hindered by a high Divine regio?

* Would you like to converse with enlightened sodales from a
wide range of times and places?

All these things can be yours! Come to Insula
Tranquilitatis!

[And that's actually a completely honest advertisement,
without even the intent to mislead. I am looking for about
three more players for a low-key play-by-email Ars Magica 5
saga centered on labwork, with optional conversation and
internal magical contests. Details on the campaign setting
are available at

http://www.world-tree-rpg.com/sythyry/ars-magica/description.html]

-- Bard Bloom

In light of the discussion about whether labwork is fun ...

I hereby open a call for players for a play-by-email Ars Magica 5
game, "Insula Tranquilitatis". (motto: Nothing Ever Happens.) All
labwork, all the time.

The covenant on Insula Tranquilitatis is guaranteed to have no
important external events happen to it, ever. Perhaps even no
important internal events, but that's up to the characters.

There will be ample opportunities for labwork.

The magi of the covenant will be required to run contests to be done
by labwork. (E.g., "Provide the most vis for the covenant" -- to
which the answer might be to extract vis constantly, or to write
spells and sell them via Redcap for vis, or other tricks.) All magi
automatically participate in every contest, though a mage who chooses
to ignore the contest and study rather than try to get vis probably
won't win. The prize in the contest is internal status; the mage
running the contest simply has to set the rules and judge the results.

Practicalities:

This will be play-by-private-Yahoo-newsgroup. Most of the play
(ideally, all of it) will be public.

I want seven magi, counting my NPC Quaesitor Taediosa Lex who will
initially be charge of the covenant.

When things get going at full speed, I expect we'll be doing a year of
game time every day or two real time. Since Nothing Ever Happens,
there should be no big deal if you miss a day here or a week there --
you get to catch up on labwork at your own speed, though you may miss
participating in a contest or some IC chatting.

Gameplay will consist of:
(1) labwork
(2) casual conversations between magi
(3) contests, for those who will.
(4) other plots (e.g., internal politics), up to the characters.

Opportunities for nefarious internal politics will be limited by the
fact that all conversations (and other contact) between magi are
public and may be reviewed later. (Viz., all gameplay should be posted
in the newsgroup.) Any conspiracies you can manage given that is
fine.

The setting will have a somewhat surreal feel to it. For the first
bit, your character may be taken from any era between 1000 A.D. and
1800 A.D., with a very orthodox, canon-abiding, static, and secretive
version of the Order of Hermes stuck into it.

If you want to play, write to me privately with a character concept.
I will choose players based on what I think will make the game be the
most fun.

Character creation guidelines: Standard Ars Magica 5 mage character
creation, from the main sourcebook only. You may not use the Insanely
Detailed character creation. Weeniedom, like taking a pile of
combat-related Flaws in a game guaranteed to have no combat, is
expected but not required. (No companions or grogs.)

and here's the URL

http://www.world-tree-rpg.com/sythyry/ars-magica/description.html