While only John or Michelle could tell you for certain, I very much doubt it. The fourth edition rules are there (I susspect)to get people started up and interested in the game. Suppliments would not serve this function (people would be unlikely down load them unless they were already interested in the game).

In some ways this may give people an unrealistically negative opinion of the Ars line because many of the suppliments were (IMHO) of considereably higher quality than the fourth edition rules.

Generally speaking, I think the supplements are superior, yes. They're certainly more flavorful. Of course, I'd recommend purchasing AM5 on the same token; it's superior to 4E (in my opinion).

There are "reviews" of sorts of some ArM products in the ArM FAQ (I think Atlas' site links to it) if you want to purchase with some forethought, but these are no more than a star rating and a few random comments. Just in case you (or anyone else) cares, here are my opinions on the ones I have:

The best one is probably "The Mysteries". It's sort of like Skills & Powers for AD&D2e: adding a cap system and lots of ideas for neat things to do, but at the cost of power-ups. Even with the power-ups, the flavor gained from the ideas behind the secret societies and mystery cults it presents is priceless.

"The Dragon and the Bear: The Novgorod Tribunal" is, for my money, the best Tribunal book of the bunch (though I haven't read them all). It's just a great setting: pagans, primordial endless forests, and above it all the impending Mongol threat. The book presents this setting well, but doesn't do much else for me. I was especially disappointed with the lack of treatment of the Mongols as a supernatural power and the complexity of the volkhvy (pagan priests). But it still makes a good read, and manages to create an interesting Hermetic dynamic and suggested plots.

Another book I can heartily recommend is "Kabbalah: Mythic Judaism", but with a disclaimer: it is an EXCELLENT book, but very focused. It probably won't be useful in your saga at all.

I have not run it, but "Festival of the Damned (Anniversary Edition)" looks like an excellent adventure. (Well, two linked adventures).

Most other works are still good, better than the core 4E rules. "Sanctuary of Ice: The Greater Alps Tribunal" presents nice Roman-style customs and political opportunities in the Bavarian Commons, but I otherwise find it just a collection of covenants. "Land of Fire and Ice: Mythic Iceland" presents an colorful treatment and an interesting almost-complete saga if you like epic, order-shaking, plots; but it is not fit for a normal ArM saga. "The Wizard's Grimoire, Revised Edition" presents excellent details on Hermetic society and some excellent rules mixed in with very bad ideas and rules. "Hedge Magic" I found not in the least good, but it IS the canonic way to model hedge wizards so it's useful. "The Medieval Bestiary, Revised Edition" is likewise just serviceable for the most part. "Faeries: Revised Edition" presents some good ideas but much is lost in dribble. "Houses of Hermes" I didn't find inspiring, although some of the info is useful.

The two products I would personally stay clear of are "The Fallen Angel" (which is just too much of a D&D adventure for me), and "Ordo Nobilis" (which is a fairly dry explanation of nobility with nary a single use for magi in sight).

Of course, your mileage WILL vary.

P.S, I really would purchase AM5. It's just better, and so far it seems its supplements are better too.

> Now that the 4th edition core rulebook is available for free, will 4th
> edition supplements follow the same path ? Will other AM4 books be
> available for free downloads ?

Erik T. is right -- we have no plans to make other books available for free. We've got to make a living at this after all, and we do so by selling both electronic and paper copies of books.

The free ArM4 was a promotion (to build up an active player base in advance of 5th Edition) and an experiment (to determine the impact of freely available PDFs on print sales).

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

They dropped like a rock.

It wasn't obvious that this would happen, by the way. For example, a lot of illegal filesharers like to cite the Baen Free Library and its success as evidence that by scanning and sharing game books they were actually doing publishers a favor; free PDFs would lead to more sales of the printed books, they claimed. I was interested in putting that theory to the test. It wound up being rather a costly experiment, though, since I still have a lot of 4th Edition rulebooks in the warehouse; my original projections were that we expected to be about sold out by the time 5th Edition was released.

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

The expectation that ArM5 was soon to be published might have been a significant factor.

Regards

- David W

What David W said.

Anyone downloading the free ArM4 and tempted to purchase it would wait to purchase ArM5. Well, most would.
Of course, there is no way to seperate ArM5's sale figures to see if that theory holds any water, but I think part of ArM5's success (and if I understand correctly, at least the early sales figures were surprisingly good) is due to this promotion.

> The expectation that ArM5 was soon to be published might have been a
> significant factor.

It could have been. On the other hand, among the 20,000+ people who downloaded the game, many of them were likely not even aware that a new edition was coming. More significantly, we did not see such a sharp decline in the sales of 3rd Edition after we took over the game from WotC, and it was known then that we were working on 4th Edition.

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

> I think part of ArM5's success (and if I understand correctly, at
> least the early sales figures were surprisingly good) is due to this
> promotion.

I believe so too. Of course, it's also hard to tease out how much the PDF might have helped, versus how much the cheap intro price. On the whole, though, I do think the free ArM4 program helped our big-picture strategy -- but I would not do it in the future with a game that I was hoping to continue to sell in print.

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

I don't have any way to break down the "old-timers" versus "other" demographic, but I can tell you that so far it has been downloaded 23,887 times, and that's more copies than 4th Edition sold in print over its lifespan.

This month alone it's had 358 downloads.

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

358 in a month! 23,000+ in a month! Wow!

I'm an old timer with a copy of every edition. For what it's worth, I bought 5 copies of Ars4 and to date 3 copies of Ars 5. One for myself, and the others I've bought and given out as birthday presents/Christmas presents for various friends.

For Ars 5, I sent a copy to my brother in Afganistan and I know that when he's not "building democracy" over there he GM's Ars for the troops. He's told me he's converted numerous troops from let me call it, a lesser game.

Anyway, I guess my point is, 23,000+ downloads! Crazy!

I can only hope all of them turn around and upgrade.

Chuck

As an "oldtimer", I can say I downloaded a copy for convenient reference, but had long since purchased a copy.

I figure I qualify as an oldtimer, because I purchased 1st ed. when it was the only edition. I qualify as a fanatic (or is that addict) because I own all five editions.

While others of us were to remain ignorant of Ars Magica until 3rd edition.
The fanaticism set in , and purchasing whatever Ars product was available in Sydney began.

I wouldnt mind if some of the rules sections , spell descriptions and the like , were available in PDF.
Maybe people could provide proof of hardcopy purchase first somehow.
Paying extra for the convenience of having a pdf would be great.

I know this kind of thing isnt cost effective and "free" copies would turn up on the Net more easily than they do now.

Kevin Siembieda (Palladium Books) pointed out , that piracy wouldnt necessarily send them out of business.
It would mean that they would no longer be able to produce much new source material (if any).

Perhaps Atlas could infringe the "Knights of the Dinner Table" copyright and produce a similar comic called "Magi of the Tea Trolley" or something.