The crowdfunding campaign for Ars Magica Definitive Edition launches October 15th. Ars Magica Definitive Edition distills over 40 books of Ars Magica rules and setting lore into one 600 page hardcover full colour tome. Ars Magica is a tabletop roleplaying game originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen and Jonathan Tweet in 1987. It’s a game where you play wizards in Mythic Europe. A world not unlike our historical 13th century Europe but with demons and dragons, fey and fairies — and where magical gifted humans pursue wisdom and magic might.
Since 1996 Ars Magica has been owned by Atlas Games. I asked Atlas Games Co-Owner John Nephew and Ars Magica Line Editor David Chart about Ars Magica and the definitive edition. First up in this post is John Nephew on why a definitive edition and why an open license.
A time machine
John, you’ve been involved with Ars Magica since the 1980ies. You founded Atlas Games and you bought the Ars Magica IP from Wizards of the Coast in 1996.
What is Ars Magica to you?
When I encountered Ars Magica in 1988, I had already been writing professionally for Dungeons & Dragons. I was staying in Northfield, Minnesota, over winter break writing a D&D sourcebook and started hanging out with the Lion Rampant crew.
My interest in everything medieval, heightened by a year of childhood spent living in Ireland, had attracted me to D&D in the first place. Ars Magica really distilled that, with its focus on Mythic Europe. Its intense focus on wizards and magic answered the question "why don't we just play D&D?"
"Ars Magica is a time machine. Hermetic wizards are [...] our stand-ins exploring Mythic Europe, with our modern sensibilities and values."
Besides everything else, Ars Magica to me is a time machine. Hermetic wizards are fundamentally anachronistic. Elements in the game that set them apart from the medieval world (such as the social effects of the Gift, and the Code of Hermes) also serve as license for them to be our stand-ins exploring Mythic Europe, with our modern sensibilities and values, whether that means defying the social order, religious dogma, or anything else.
Thanks, exploring Mythic Europe through play is a killer feature of Ars Magica.
An object that every player will want
Atlas Games has published both a fourth and a fifth edition of Ars Magica. An impressive long list of supplements have come out leaving barely any blank spots in Mythic Europe. Already quite an accomplishment.
Why a new edition and why a definitive edition?
I think 5th edition is the best edition of the game; it is certainly the most well-developed, with 40 supplementary books, and by far the longest-lived. Its age shows in its production values. It is a pre-crowdfunding production, meant to be kept in print, and that set budgetary limits around its production.
There have been a couple of foreign language translations of the Ars Magica 5th edition that, with crowdfunding, did really beautiful full-colour versions of the book. In English, meanwhile, we went from the original two-colour interior hardcover to an easier-to-stock black & white softcover that is now the standard manual.
Definitive Edition gives us a chance to pull decades of development back into the core rules for easier reference, while maintaining compatibility with the game that has been played continuously over 20 years. Crowdfunding will make it possible to make a physical artifact with a quality the game has never before seen.
"Our goal is to make a physical object that every Ars Magica player will want."
Stretch goals will enable us to add even more new art: Doug Shuler, best known for his Magic: The Gathering cards, has been playing and illustrating for Ars Magica since 1st Edition. (He drew the cover art for the 1E second printing, and painted the 2nd Edition cover, among many others.) Doug has painted some two-page spreads for the book already, and there's a list of more we'd love him to do.
No one needs Definitive Edition -- its purpose is to repackage information that is already out there, without disrupting anyone's saga-in-progress. Our goal is to make a physical object that every Ars Magica player will want, even when they can legitimately get all the text of the game for free under the terms of the open license.
The preview certainly look great. It feels very theme appropriate with a single wizard's tome collecting the distilled wisdom of generations of players.
A license to create and share
The Ars Magica Definitive Edition will come with an open license. Essentially a Creative Commons by-attribution share-alike with limitations around the terms also used in World of Darkness, an IP not owned by Atlas Games.
D&D had the SRD and the d20 OGL for decades that Hasbro last year tried to revoke and got a huge backlash for. Free League has embraced an open license with games like Mörk Borg growing a huge catalogue of fan created commercial content. Ars Magica never had an open license yet still the internet is full of fan created content.
Why an open license and why now? What is it that an open license brings to Ars Magica?
RPGs are by their nature a creative collaboration, one that copyright law poorly handles, in my opinion. A game that has thrived as long as Ars Magica has done so not simply due to passive consumers, but because storyguides and players have taken published material as a launching point for their imaginative creations. As publishers, we worry about losing the ability to make a return on our investment (why will anyone pay us if they can get everything for free?); but fan-created and shared material is an essential aspect of a thriving game. Open licensing is a way to formalise, clarify, and encourage those creations.
In the case of Ars Magica, I feel that Atlas Games also has special situation. We own the game, but I have always thought of us as stewards. When Wizards of the Coast sold it to us, they entrusted us with its care, and they were concerned less with money than with our capacity to support the game going forward. I think we've lived up to that promise over the past 28 years since we acquired the game.
At the same time, I realize that we are also a barrier to the game's potential. Our bandwidth and resources are limited. We've never been able to do as much with Ars Magica as I'd like to. We've always taken a permissive approach toward fanzines and other third-party creations over the years, whether or not money was charged. We want people to just go ahead, create and share, and not have to ask for special permission. We also don't want to have any responsibility for reviewing or approving anything, which mostly just makes us an obstacle in the process.
"We want people to just go ahead, create and share, and not have to ask for special permission."
There's a risk that this open-licensing will hurt our future profits as a business. I'm willing to take that risk, because I love the game and this Creative Commons license will mean that it can survive and thrive as long as anyone wants to play with it, no matter what happens to me or Atlas Games. Plus, I do think there's a fair chance that open licensing will be good for our business, leading to more engaged and active players who will in at least some cases buy stuff from us.
That is a great answer. Truly. Thanks.
One more thing
Before we wrap up, I have one last question.
John, when playing Ars Magica, have you ever molested the faeries, interfered with mundanes, dealt with demons, or scried upon your fellow Magi?
Can I decline to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me and bring ruin upon my sodales? 🙂
I will take that as a 'yes' but trust you acted in the best interest of the Order. 😉
Thanks for a great game and thanks for sharing the thoughts that went into creating the Ars Magica Definitive Edition. I wish you all the best with the crowdfunding campaign and with creating a truly magnificent product.
