I had some of the books, and I thought the setting was very interesting, but I couldn't get into playing it.  That's probably more about me than anything else, since I rarely play a Mage/Wizard/Sorcerer/Magic-User, and that's really the entire point of the game.

Quote from: danbuter;555411I'd love to see an Ars Magica type OSR game. Using D&D rules, and bumping up magic-user's power levels. It would need rules for running a covenant and other political situations added in, but otherwise, I think it would be very doable.

Maybe give spell bonuses based on how much vis your covenant controls, or make it like the ley line walkers in Palladium, who get big boosts while on a ley line.

Oh yeah, libraries and their use are extremely important in this game, which I think is really cool.

I think you'd get a vastly different game feel - AM wizards can, theoretically, cast all day, and the custom-casting mechanic means you can act in the now rather than necessarily having to plan a day in advance, which is handy because any magical opponent you face will also be custom-casting...). Not sure how you'd represent that in the TSR D&D rule set; maybe allow on-the-fly expenditure of vis to add 3.x metamagic abilities, retain spells after casting, or cast higher-level spells.

You should probably also adjust the XP tables to further slow down wizard progression. I think a skill mechanic would also be nice. I'd also keep troupe play, so the wizards explicitly have hangers-on who they have to rely on at times. And keep casting time and spell disruption rules.

But all the above said, you would need rules for spell development and book learning, because that's the biggest thing about the covenant structure, I feel. No spell list is really big enough to replicate AM.

Sounds like you'd have a great game on your hands.