You've heard about tv shows that jump the shark. You've heard about RPGs that jump the shark. Usually this is an event that occurs when a project has essentially run out of steam. But what about projects that jump the shark before they ever appear in public?

My example is the highly touted Ars Magica. First published by Lion Rampant, then by White Wolf and Atlas Games, with an interrum in the hands of Wizards of the Coast.

Ars Magica came about because of dissatisfaction with D&D by two college students, Mark Rhein*Hagen and Jonathan Tweet. They saw problems with D&D's treatment of the Middle Ages, and with its handling of Magic Users (the old term for Wizards). They decided to do a game which would present an accurate version of the medieval period, and give MUs pride of place. They succeeded in the latter, and failed miserably in the former. Even worse, their success where MUs were concerned laid the foundations for the atrocity that is Ars Magica fifth edition.

I'll certainly agree that Ars Magica is pretty inferior as an "accurate" medieval simulation.

I was never a big fan of the game, myself.

RPGpundit

Quote from: mythusmageArs Magica came about because of dissatisfaction with D&D by two college students, Mark Rhein*Hagen and Jonathan Tweet. They saw problems with D&D's treatment of the Middle Ages, and with its handling of Magic Users (the old term for Wizards). They decided to do a game which would present an accurate version of the medieval period, and give MUs pride of place. They succeeded in the latter, and failed miserably in the former. Even worse, their success where MUs were concerned laid the foundations for the atrocity that is Ars Magica fifth edition.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's supposed to be an accurate history.  Since Ars Magica's very premise is about mages tossing around real magic, I don't see how it's going to be an accurate version of the medieval period.  Do you have a source that this is what they were trying to do?  

I've got 1st edition, and it describes itself as "Ars Magica follows the same basic format as most other role-playing games and is even set in the fantasy world of magic and mystery that is so common to the hobby, but it differs from other role-playing games in some important ways."  It lists nine differences along with descriptions of each.  They are:
1) Focus on Magic
2) Distinct Character Types (i.e. no balanced classes)
3) Role-switching (i.e. rotating GM)
4) Emphasis on personality
5) Medieval Setting
6) Rule Flexibility
7) Open Money System
Use of Latin
9) Whimsy Cards

Note that #5 is that it uses medieval history for flavor, not that it is an accurate historical setting.  

Now, I do think that even the medieval flavor is pretty thin (not to mention the botched Latin).  But I think the game is distinctive and fun even if set in a pure fantasy world, especially because of #1-#3.  If you're looking for medieval history, then it's a disappointment, but that's a matter of expectation.

Ars Mag is one of the most revolutionnary games ever written.  It really did introduce a whole new way of playing RPGs and included one of the best thought out magic systems ever designed and as a result I think that any attempt to label it as jumping the shark straight out of the gate is doomed to failure.

I still have my set of Whimsy Cards somewhere.  I ought to break those bad boys out, maybe for a wild and wooly con game or something.  I got them into a single session of an ongoing Champions campaign once and the players absolutely loathed them.

Games that jump the shark before they actually appear? Well, what about most licensed games? Most of them clearly exaggerated the need for fanboys to play a game in the world of the movie/book/comic. Does anyone really get into the hobby because of this, even if you 'disguise' the RPG aspect by calling it "game and sourcebook for Wheel of the Battlestar Potter"?

It gets worse when the background is lacking depth, and apart from some Comics and long-running novels, almost anything is guilty here. The more epic you get, the less detail gets spent on the many normal things players need to know. And if the writers are too afraid to break canon by inventing stuff, you're bound to stay in the Prancing Pony for all your middle-earth tavern needs...

I've yet to find a decent licensed game that actually seems to make money for the publishers. D6 Star Wars almost was an exception, as some of the RPG stuff made its way back into the canon (mostly because the novel writers suffered from the same lack of detail and took everything they could get). But even that was too expensive in the end and now WEG is back to generic stuff.

Now back to the Ars Magica discussion...

Serenity sems to have made money. They're into their fourth printing now.

-clash

Quote from: SosthenesDoes anyone really get into the hobby because of this, even if you 'disguise' the RPG aspect by calling it "game and sourcebook for Wheel of the Battlestar Potter"?

Licensed or not, The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book from the Tri-Stat d6 days still remains one of the most faithful adaptations of anime to RPG out there. It really is a stylish piece of work in every possible way.

The thing about Serenity to me is that, much like Battlestar Galactica, the best and most interesting stuff is stuff that really wouldn't work in an RPG like the relationships between the characters.

It really horrifies me that there are people out there who watch the first series of the new BSG and go "Woo hoo! I wanna kill me some Cylons!", it's like going to see a version of Henry V and then wanting to run a game where you spend your time killing french knights.

It's one of those things that really drives home how intellectually unsubtle your average geek is.

I would never play this Jump the Shark game. It's so tied to personal taste that there is nothing of any objective value in it. Even if there is a consensus, there are better ways to communicate this. All this "Jump the Shark at the start" tells me is the poster didn't like the game, and never liked it. Why not just say that and get on with life? The objective seems to be to piss others off and loudly proclaim the superiority of one's own opinion.

I'm well aware that I'm ridiculously fallible and blind to my own predjudices - that's why I can't edit my own work, I can't see my own typical mistakes - so I try and assume it of others and cut them some slack. If I know they're honestly trying, that means a lot in my book.

If you say "This game Jumped the Shark right from the start," I wonder why you care so much about something that never interested you. Why the anger? Maybe it was your expectations for the game that were wrong, thus you feel cheated. If others seem to really like it, maybe it's not an objective fact, but personal opinion working.

As to Ars Magica, I have no opinion. I picked AM 4th up for free from DTRPG, but have never actually read it.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceI would never play this Jump the Shark game. It's so tied to personal taste that there is nothing of any objective value in it. Even if there is a consensus, there are better ways to communicate this. All this "Jump the Shark at the start" tells me is the poster didn't like the game, and never liked it. Why not just say that and get on with life? The objective seems to be to piss others off and loudly proclaim the superiority of one's own opinion.  

-clash

At first I thought you were talking about some new RPG called "Jump the Shark"  I was gonna be like, "Jump the Shark musta jumped the shark, cuz I've never heard of it."

Quote from: SigmundAt first I thought you were talking about some new RPG called "Jump the Shark"  I was gonna be like, "Jump the Shark musta jumped the shark, cuz I've never heard of it."

LOL! Good one!

-clash

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalArs Mag is one of the most revolutionnary games ever written.  It really did introduce a whole new way of playing RPGs and included one of the best thought out magic systems ever designed and as a result I think that any attempt to label it as jumping the shark straight out of the gate is doomed to failure.

Rather than discuss this further here, I'll make a new thread specifically about the merits of Ars Magica.

I'd say that there are some games out there that "Jump the Shark" right from the very beginning, those being games that specifically fail at their intended premise in some catastrophic way.

I'd say, however, that pretty much any game that survives long enough to have multiple editions probably isn't one of these.  It could certainly be one, like Deadlands or 7th Sea, that can be said to have "Jumped the shark" later on, though...

RPGPundit

Most of the talk about Ars Magica being historically accurate appeared in the fan publishing of the time. Fanzines and the like. Jonathan Tweet was a contributor to Alarums and Excursions at the time, and he touted the historical accuracy of Ars Magica there.

Until, that is, fellow contributors called malarky on that. So the claim changed to Ars Magica was an accurate representation of how the people of the time saw their world. From my reading of fourth and fifth edition, that's the game's take to this day. There is a huge problem with that. That problem being the Wizards.

Jonathan and Mark were right about Magic Users in D&D; at medium or higher levels they did dominate the game. By ninth level Fighting Men and Clerics (later Thieves, Rangers, and Paladins) were relegated to bodyguards and medics. Support staff for all intents and purposes. Ars Magica acknowledged this state of affairs and codified it.

However, in the Europe that was (later, the Europe as it saw itself) wizards did not hobnob with the world the way they do in D&D. At least not as far as Tweet and Rhein*hagen could see. So Ars Magica Wizards got secret headquarters, a secret cabal, and a secret tradition.

Trouble is, the Hermetic Tradition is a product of the Rennaissance. A period sometime after that of Ars Magica. Cabals too are a relatively modern thing. As for secret headquarters ... bandit lairs and the like do qualify, but where they pertain to secret traditions and secret cabals, that too is more recent than the Ars Magica version. In truth, even when the Hermetic Tradition arose real world wizards and alchemists were very much involved in the world. Courts throughout Europe had astrologers, many monarchs and nobles hired alchemists, and no less than Elizabeth the First of England had her own court wizard in the person of John Dee.

The whole sequestering of Wizards in the game came about as a way to explain why they didn't dominate the mundane world the way they did the arcane. Something which flies in the face of basic human nature. Especially when you're talking about people with the power Ars Magica wizards hold.

That we'll be looking at in my next post.