Ars Magica the Computer Game: Interview with the Black Chicken Kickstarter Team
First up, do me a favour. If you don’t know or care about Ars Magica, but you enjoy strategy games, or fantasy games, or history games, go to this Kickstarter and think about pledging $20. If it funds, you get a download of the game when it is completed. If the funds aren’t raised, your money never leaves your account. $20. Do it for CJ 
I’m not involved with the project, but this is a computer game based on the rpg I spend my life writing books for, so I’m keen to promote it as hard as I can If you help fund, and later play and enjoy the computer game,perhaps one day you will understand what this whole Ars Magica thing is about So $20 – and you either don’t have to pay if it fails, or you do and get a cool game.
I’m pretty sure all fans of Ars Magica were delighted to hear about the kickstarter to raise funds to allow the funding of an Ars Magica based computer game set in the Schism War, and a lot of people would like to know more. Funding is going well, but after 4 days the project is still only 10% funded, so I think it’s vital now to push it as hard as possible, and let as many people hear about the project as I can. I think it probably will fund, but I am an optimist: yet very few roleplaying games have the beauty of setting and design that Ars Magica provides, and a lot of people who might never want to play the tabletop rpg might be excited by a game of wizards in England in the century of the Norman Conquest. Atlas Games have licensed it: if funding allows it will go ahead!
Now I won’t explain in detail what a Kickstarter is, or what Ars Magica is - basically a Kickstarter is a way to raise funds for a creative project, and you buy in at a certain level, pledging money if the project funds. If it funds in 30 days your money is debited and you receive certain rewards, based upon the level of your pledge – if the project is even a dollar short of the total, no one pays anything at all, and the project never goes ahead.
The guys at Black Chicken have a history of delivering high quality computer games, and are also genuine fans of the Ars Magica system – so here is my (slightly redacted) light hearted interview with them!
Very much so. Shame that could have been a bonus at a pledge level! What will be the likely minimum specs to run the game? Is it true you don’t even require people to learn ecclesiastical Latin to play your game???! Jokes aside, Ars has a reputation for complexity and at times perhaps being a bit heavy historically, so will people who prefer high fantasy (and who aren’t sure of the difference between Harald Hardrada and Harold Godwinson at thirty paces) be engaged? Go read it here!
The Battle of Fornham 1173: re-fought with Ars Magica!
I have written a lot on games recently and not much else, but back to the normal soon. Despite the title this post is as much about real English history as my game, and therefore possibly worth reading — you can skip the sections with green headings and read the ones with dark blue heading to find the fact rather than the game stuff! I have just finished hosting Grand Tribunal 2012 the Ars Magica roleplaying game convention, and so am still full of enthusiasm for my gaming exploits. This year saw a rather unusual one — trying to recreate a rather important if obscure event in English history (a battle at Fornham, just outside Bury St Edmunds in 1173) with a combination wargame/freeform/rpg game set in the world of Ars Magica, using the 5th edition rules.
However, let’s start with the real world history…
The battle took place immediately north of Bury St. Edmunds, between Fornham St Martin, Fornham All Saints and Fornham St. Genevieve in the Lark Valley.
Why was there a battle at Fornham?
During the reign of Henry II Henry was persuaded to grant his son (also called Henry) a coronation, making him effectively “junior king”. From this time on he is referred to as “Henry the Young King” to differentiate him from his father. This was deemed necessary to ensure a smooth succession on Henry II’s death — after The Anarchy of the 1150′s when the rival camps of the Empress Matilda and King Stephen fought a bitter civil war in England over the throne, it seemed like a good idea.
Unfortunately Henry the Young King felt his father had given him the title but none of the power, and rebelled against his father. The rebels fought a campaign in Normandy, then part of the Angevin Empire which Henry II ruled over. Henry, Geoffrey and Richard all attacked their fathers castles, and various baron’s including Hugh Bigod, Earl of Suffolk and Robert Beaumont Earl of Leicester rose in support of the siblings against their father.
Henry II however fought a brilliant campaign, and the rebels were smashed in Normandy despite the French joining them and the Scottish too entering in to the alliance and invading England in the north. Humphrey III de Bohun (the Constable of England) crushed the Scottish invasion and pursued them back north of the border forcing them to end hostilities, while Richard de Lucy (the Justiciar) took the rebel stronghold the city of Leicester and besieged Leicester castle.
In October 1173 Leicester tried a last gasp invasion of England, landing at Walton on the Naze with a formidable force of Flemish mercenaries. He attempted to take the port of Dunwich (which no longer exists, a victim of coastal erosion, except as a couple of gravestones on a cliff and a fish and chip hut as I recall from my last visit) but the townsfolk closed the gates against him and bombarded the besiegers with rocks and the contents of chamber pots.
Leicester withdrew, probably to Framlingham, where he met up with another powerful rebel Hugh Bigod. English history often turns on minor events, and in this case it was a squabble between two women. Bigod’s wife Gundreda and Petronilla de Grandmesnil, wife of Leicester, fell out soon after meeting. The two women simply could not stand each other — and all plans for a united rebel attack on London faltered. This may well have proven to be the disastrous moment for the rebel alliance. Leicester decided march east and try to reach his power base in the East Midlands, and perhaps relieve Leicester castle. Bigod was to proceed south through Essex. However once Leicester reached Bury St Edmunds where predictably the townsfolk closed the gates against him, and the monks raised a huge force of 1,200 men to repel him, he discovered the forces of Humphrey III de Bohun and Richard de Lucy waiting to prevent him crossing the River Lark.
Where was the battle?
As far as I can make out, the area bounded by Fornham St Martin, Fornham St Genevieve, Fornham All Saints and the Tollgate, Bury St. Edmunds. The Priory near the tollgate had a mural bridge across the Lark, heavily defensible (similar to the one you can see in Eastgate Street, Bury St Edmunds on the edge of the abbey ruins – a few flint remains exist which I discovered when I was fourteen and lived on the battlefield, behind the supermarket car park and to the right – also many oyster shells from the staple diet of the times in a midden slowly collapsing in to the river!)
You can walk along a footpath from Fornham All Saints Bridge down to the Mildenhall road which crosses the golf course and gives you a great view of the battlefield if you wish to take a look, and many artifacts from the battle included some wonderful swords and crested helmets (far more elaborate than I had expected from Ars Magica artwork, looking more like later full plate helms) can be seen in Moyses Hall Museum on the Buttermarket, Bury St Edmunds (admission free to Bury residents btw!). I worked out where I thought the troops were on the morning of October 17th 1173, and then assigned starting positions, though players had considerable flexibility in their exact set up.
Map of the battlefield for Fornham 1173
How did we build the battlefield?
I have fought Fornham twice before – once as an Ars Magica adventure as part of my ongoing saga, using tabletop rpg rules, and once as a skirmish wargame. For Grand Tribunal 2012 I decided to combine the two. Counters would be used for the main units, plastic 20mm toy soldiers from the Airfix Robin Hood and Sheriff of Nottingham packs for the leaders and unique characters (each represented by a player) and then a light green king-size bed sheet was painted with the River Lark, villages, fields and water meadows. With help from Tom Nowell, Becky Smith, Phil Jenkins and Hugh Wake we ended up with a simple, cheap-ish and visually appealing set up for the game.
Becky made up paper models of the Priory and two churches, and the remaining church was one Hugh and I had built. They were lightweight and actually all looked rather good on the table, and dark green cloth cut t shape made excellent woods. We had planned to use books to make the hills (just placing them under the sheet) but I forgot to mention it to Hugh who did the set up and this being Suffolk they are more ‘slight rises’ than hills, except for Tut Hill and Barton Hill at opposite corners of the map which are still very low in the terms of anywhere but East Anglia, and almost entirely off map.
The actual Lark Valley is really quite flat, only rising behind my parents’ house as you proceed up what is now the Mildenhall Estate to a ridge line that divides it from the Howard Estate. I created the counters in Paintshop Pro, researching and pasting the correct heraldry on them, and colouring them perhaps confusingly according to the heraldic colours of their leaders, which meant many counters ended up red & yellow, blue & yellow, and so forth despite being on different sides. Reginald the Ear of Cornwall and Robert Earl of Leicester both ended up with blue & yellow counters, which makes it hard to see on the photos who is who. The actual counters used however were very clear as you could see the shields of each leader, though perhaps there was scope for some confusion over heraldry — which would be historically very appropriate – but on the day it never happened. The counters were printed on thick card, then pasted carefully by Phil Jenkins on to cork cut to size. It was all a bit Blue Peter!
The whole construction process took place over two weeks, though two days would probably be enough if a few of you were involved. The most laborious task was Becky’s - building the churches and Priory, though really this was entirely for scenic effect. You could miss that bit out. Alternatively if more ambitious you could build the houses for the three Fornhams and the tollgate, mural bridge and Fornham bridge. The ground scale used was 1cm to 7 meters, which meant the battlefield was a seventh the size of the real one, as everything in the game worked on 1cm to a meter, roughly the scale of the figures and buildings.
This contraction does not matter because the units counters were made to roughly ground scale, and then cavalry scaled up by a factor of four to show them milling around and their greater “reach” on the battlefield. These choices may seem odd, but they were very carefully designed to make the game run smoothly, and worked very well in practice! 
The characters
The game as written has 19 characters and supports 19 players. Yes, really. However we fell short of this by a few on the day (some folks were tempted away to play The Jerbiton Summit freeform or other games: there is always a lot of games on offer in each slot at Grand Tribunal), and Jocelin of Brakelond is an optional character who need not be played, and if is should be used to replace someone who has died already.
We did the same with Binna & Banna, and Maggy, and doubled up one of the Royalist commands, and had Walter de Wahull arrive on the battlefield late when a last-minute player showed up. Reading the character sheets will show you who can be doubled up with who to give a player two commands. You could of course play Fornham as a straight battle if you so wish – just get rid of all the “oddball” characters, and fight it with any wargaming rules? Each of the characters had a full Ars Magica character sheet, and I used rules from Hedge Magic Revised, ROP: The Divine, ROP: The Infernal, ROP: Magic and ROP: Faerie as morale rules from Lords of Men and the core Ars Magica 5th combat system, and especially the group combat and leadership bonuses rules.
I explained all the relevant rules in the character sheets though so in fact we did not have to consult any books during the game! Each character was written with specific aims, often very tangential to actually winning the battle: these victory objectives each scored seven points in the final scoring, and there were a few bonus points available to each character. Highest score on the day was I think 24; average around 14, and a few players managed to score zero! The victory points system was important because it gives a) competitive players a reason to play in character b) gives the rebels, outnumbered six to one a good chance of actually winning and c) made it quite clear what everyone wanted out of the battle. You could ignore it though if you wanted. The characters were of three types; rebels, royalists and oddballs. The oddballs were various minor characters with no troops but whose action was to have a profound effect on how the day actually turned out, and one of them did end up commanding a unit of knights at one point.
Rebel Characters
- ROBERT BEAUMONT. Earl of Leicester
Commands 4 groups of trained knights (36 knights)
- PETRONILLA BEAUMONT, the Earl’s scheming wife.
Has a bodyguard group (4 knights)
- DIGGO OF KASSEL,leader of the Flemish Crossbowmen mercenaries
Commands 5 units of crossbowmen (100 crossbowmen) and 2 units of archers (40 archers)
- MENFRID OF GHENT, leader of the Flemish spearmen Commands 5 units of spearmen (100 men)
Loyalist Characters
- BROTHER SAMSON OF BURY ST EDMUNDS
Commands 5 groups of knights (25 knights) and 10 groups of Bury Townfolk (1,200 untrained men with improvised weapons)
- RICHARD DE LUCY, JUSTICIAR OF ENGLAND
Commands 12 groups of knights (96 knights) and 3 groups of untrained spearmen (120 men)
- HUMPHREY III DE BOHUN, HIGH CONSTABLE OF ENGLAND
Commands 10 groups of knights (90 knights)
- WALTER FITZ ROBERT OF LITTLE DUNMOW
Commands 5 groups of knights (30 knights)from Essex
- WILLIAM D’AUBIGNY, EARL OF ARUNDEL
Commands 5 groups of knights (30 knights) from Castle Rising, Norfolk
- WILLIAM FITZ ROBERT, EARL OF GLOUCESTER
Commands 5 groups of knights (30 knights) from Bristol
- REGINALD DE DUNSTANVILLE, EARL OF CORNWALL
Commands 3 groups of knights (15 knights) from Truro
- WALTER DE WAHULL, ROMANTIC KNIGHT
One group of himself and bodyguard (3 knights)
ODD BALLS
- BINNA & BANNA
A little girl & her brother.
- MAGGY
An elderly lady out collecting sticks
- JOCELIN OF BRAKELOND
A monk in the wrong place at the wrong time
- LUCIAN OF GUERNICUS
A Quaesitor on important business!
- RED HANNAH
A lady of Fornham St. Martin who has not fled her home.
- PRIOR ROBERT
His house is in the battlefield, but he seems strangely distracted!
- A MYSTERIOUS NOBLEWOMAN
She rides alone across the battlefield. What does she want and who is she?
The accounts of the (mythic) battle!
Rather than say what actually happened and spoil it in case there is a re-fight, as happened historically Leicester lost. Here follow the accounts of some of the main protagonists, emailed to me by their players after the battle. I think reading them gives you a sense of the fog of war, and I have provided another map of the battlefield in which I have shown the approximate positions and movements of each of the protagonists whose accounts are listed below. Hopefully it is amusing, even if you were not there on the day, and reading it really shows why medieval chronicles are often rather hard to understand when we try and sort out what actually happened in many battles!
Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester.
Poor Robert of Leceister – Luck and God was certainly not on his side that day! His overconfidence led him to lead a heroic charge to destroy the southern bridge (over a drainage ditch), where he was met by Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall. A battle ensued between the knights of Leceister and Cornwall as the Leceister knights attempted to destroy the bridge. Leciester’s knights suffered 3 casualties and took 3 Kent knights prisoner, but Robert himself was gravely wounded against the Cornish lord, who smote Robert’s head open. Eyes full of blood, Robert botched his retreat and fell from his horse. Taken prisoner by Cornwall, who took him bound to the Priory, he remained there for the rest of the battle. His leaderless knights were overwhelmed by the Royalists, and Cornwall impaled Robert on a red hot poker and hung him from the Priory walls, as a warning to all other godless rebels.
Historically Leicester’s fate was kinder – see below!
The critical moment of the battle in a photograph by Hugh Wake: Robert the Earl of Leicester and Reginald the elderly (and deaf) Earl of Cornwall clash with their knights on the bridge over a stream on the waterlogged Tayfen Meadow.
Menfrid of Ghent, Flemish Mercenary Captain
Boldly did Menfrid send his hundred Flemish spearmen up the road to act as a vanguard and escort for the baggage train. Menfrid himself went into the church of St. Martin and prayed and prayed for the intervention of Saint Dympna. Forty of his men formed a defensive line outside the church to hold the knights coming along the road from the north whilst the rest moved back to defend the baggage train from the knights approaching from the Priory. Suddenly a terrible soul rendering howl emminated from the woods and his men holding the northern road fled into the church leaving their spears behind. They rambled about some big black dog or other. Finally Saint Dympna intervened and Menfrid rallied his men, twenty of whom went off to capture knights lying wounded on the field outside the church for ransom whilst he led another twenty men to relieve the Flemish crossbowmen outside with the aid of another twenty spear men who moved away from the baggage train as needed. The last forty men “escorted” two wagons of the baggage train off the field of war and sensing that the battle was lost Menfrid made a deal with Sir Reginald’s knights and gave up his hostages for safe conduct off the field.
Menfrid’s men escaped, but the Flemish crossbowmen were massacred by the knights of Humphrey. Only their leader, Diggo of Kassel, was to escape. Let us move on to the royalist accounts…
Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall.
That mumbler Damson (Editor: He means Samson - poor Reginald was deaf in one ear) bungled things from the start by lining his forces up behind the unfordable river where they’d never get into the fray, despite my protestations. The IDIOT actually thought he knew what he was doing! God may move in mysterious ways, but not as mysterious as Damson’s men, ha!
The key to the battle was clearly the bridge in front of the priory, which Damson’s bungling had thankfully left the path clear to for my household. So along the road we trotted, spotting Leicester and some of his knights attempting to take the bridge. Putting spurs to our horses flanks we smashed into them, driving them off the bridge and back into their camp in disarray. In the ensuing melee, several of his knights fell and I personally defeated and captured the rebel Leicester. My knights having the better of the combat, I left them to it and escorted Leicester back to the Priory where Damson (bloodthirsty bugger) insisted he be impaled. I returned to my Knights who were finally receiving some support from the knights under the supposed command of Damson, come belatedly to the battle (the men-at arms never made it, and a good thing too, as all they are good for is holding castles and being ridden underfoot) By this time the left wing of the army had found a fording point and were rolling up the remnants of Leicester’s forces from the North, I having pinned them in their camp to that end. The battle was over.
I did hear after the battle that all manner of weird and wonderful happenings had been reported. The wild imaginings of men green to war if you ask me, inventing stories to excuse their own shortcomings. I never saw or heard anything of the sort!
Brother Samson of Bury Abbey
My Lord Abbot, I beg to report that through Divine favour we have been victorious this day ! I grieve for those who have died in pursuit of our cause but I know that Our Lord will grant them a place of honour at His table for their service. By the Lord’s Grace, I gathered some 1200 men of the area who love their rightful king and 25 knights who owe service to the Abbey and we arrived at Prior Robert’s house in time to stand against the rebel, Leicester. As you know, there is but a small and defensible bridge across the Lark here and the rebel forces appeared few so I gave instruction to Sir Reginald, who had accompanied us, and our own knights to ride forth and seek battle with the ne’er-do-wells while I held back the citizenry to defend the House of God and the crossing of the Lark. I had hoped that some of the local men might know of a ford across the Lark so that they could support the knights but also their knowledge proved false so the entire host was required to slowly cross via the Prior’s house’s bridge.
I believe that to the north the men of the Constable and Justiciar manoeuvred also to bring the enemy to battle, though My Lord de Lucy seemed much hampered by the Lark’s swift flow and thereafter succumbed to diverse diversions rather than pursuing the enemy with his customary vigour. Surely God’s light shined upon Sir Reginald though for in Our service he rode hard for the traitors and he and his knights struck mighty blows against the enemy forces, including Leicester himself. Such was Sir Reginald’s prowess enhanced by God that Leicester himself has struck down and captured ! Truly God moves in mysterious ways for who would have thought that Sir Reginald, in his dotage, should be the instrument of Leicester’s downfall ! However, as the knights directly under my command also advanced to drive off Leicester’s men there came a dreadful smell of brimstone and I was affeared that the chapel in the Prior’s house had been sore afflicted by great evil ! Indeed, such an evil must have been present and must have touched Prior Robert for he joined me on the walls only to give orders to our knights that they should support Leicester ! Surely he was in the thrall of Lucifer !
As my superior though I could not gainsay him but made my way clear of the infernal stench and called upon St Edmund to show him the error of his ways. Ah, glorious day ! I had not thought to be so blessed that I should see such a saint walk upon God’s earth but it was so – St Edmund himself castigated the Prior in such tone that the Prior immediately repented his actions. Alas, the infernal dominion was strong here though for Satan’s minion challenged St Edmund for the Prior’s soul; but no one can match the power of Our Lord and St Edmund carried the Evil One away. Prior Robert is even as I write reconsecrating the chapel. But what of the battle ? Well, I am sorry to say, Your Reverence, that the fighting was so heavy with Leicester’s forces that ten of our knights have fallen and drawn their final breath on this Earth. They shall surely be rewarded in Heaven ! But none were captured – and in conjunction with Sir Reginald’s men we took some nine knights of Leicester captive.
Glory be to God that Leicester himself was also returned to the Prior’s house. I am sad to say though that due to a miscommunication between Sir Reginald and myself, Sir Reginald had him put to death before he could be handed over to the King’s Justice. We have won great victory here, Lord Abbot. A traitor halted, an evil taint removed and a few pennies for Mother Church’s Holy Cause as well ! Truly the Lord smiles upon us ! Your Servant, Brother Samson
Fierce fighting at Fornham St. Martin and on Tayfen meadow
Richard de Lucy, Justiciar of England
Finally chased Leicester down just north of St Edmund’s Bury. Gave out my orders. De Bohun ranting about killing mercenaries as usual. That Samson is an awkward so-and-so, didn’t take the hint about the toll-gates. Both spent too much time talking about God and not the task in hand. And so we rode out to do the King’s will and crush the rebels, myself in the centre, de Bohun on the left and Samson on the right. FitzRobert kept pestering me about some legal document he wants me to put my seal to. Have to watch him. And so, we rode out onto the field. Tricky fellow, Leicester, got lots of archers. Hope we can buy them off, told de Bohun that we want them alive. He may have been listening. And so we rode forth, our pennons flying proudly in the breeze. The King’s men were arrayed in serried ranks, arms gleaming, before us lay the river. Distant sounds of battle came from the right and to the left the unearthly cries of some hunting beast, howling like a great hound, as I said to Sir Hugh. Most odd. The host rode forth, as yet unopposed, the enemy holding to their positions beyond the river.
At one pint, the treacherous bank gave way, plunging both me and my horse into the torrent. Emerging, I espied a most curious sight - two children, with skins as green as beans. Yes, most certainly like green beans. A very memorable simile, suitable, indeed, to be sung by minstrels. Their conversation was most charming, as they danced in the meadows. Indeed, I was strangely inclined to dance with them myself. However, sterner tasks called. So I bid Sir Hugh to gat down and give his horse to the green children, as I could not bear to be parted from such enchanting creatures, and we rode forth once more. Passing some fleeing knights of de Bohun, we stormed across the river and shortly thereafter a great victory was won, with the news that Leicester himself was taken by Reginald de Dunstanville and his forces destroyed. (Shame about the mercenaries). Good show!
de Lucy stalled by the River Lark – view looking south-east from Fornham All Saints
Humphrey III de Bohun, Constable of England
Sir Humphrey’s battle diary Good. Run Leicester to ground without most of his allies. Bu**er still has his ru**y mercenaries with him though I see. De Lucy has given me command of the northern flank along with some rubbish about trying to save Leicester’s mercenaries so he can buy them out. I’ve told him that they are all spawns of Satan and he’d be mad to even consider using them. We agreed that any left alive after the battle would be his to recruit so I’ve given orders to my lads to make sure that none of the da**ed crossbowmen survive at least. Lost too many good men to them in the past to let them get off lightly now ! Sound fellow Fitz-Robert ! Wants to go charging off to have at the traitors. Solid fellow ! I’ll follow up with my lads and we’ll crush this treasonous lot my lunch time ! Some rum goings on with that de Lucy bloke. Capering about like some kind of madman. Always thought he was going a bit soft. Probably his age. Wish he’d get his men across the Lark though as we might need his knights to keep Leicester’s footmen off while we kill the crossbowmen. Well, got my lads across the Lark and well on the road to dealing with those ba**ard crossbowmen and what do you know but I come across, Margaret, the young filly who is betrothed to me. Can’t leave the lads for too long during the battle but best get her to a church. Silly gel, doesn’t know what’s good for her like most of her high strung gender !
Tried to run off – probably in terror with the battle only half a mile away. Still, now she’s cracked herself on the noggin she’s appropriately docile. I’ll have a priest look her over and make sure she was just lost round here. Can’t be too careful given her family connections. Time to get back to the lads ! Bl**dy idiots. Some baying dog has scared over twenty of them into the Lark. Serves them right if they drowned for being such lightweights ! Still, they have at least found a ford for de Lucy. Lord knows, he appears to need all the help he can get ! Ha, just getting up towards my boys and they seem to have overrun the remains of Leicester’s baggage train and have arranged a parley with what is left of Leicester’s forces. Da**ed good lads have also dealt with the crossbowmen as well. Never suffer one of those evil little bu**ers to live, that’s what I say. De Lucy can have the mercenary footmen and good riddance to them. Assuming de Lucy ever actually gets here of course. Hopeless. Married Margaret. Not bad but I’ve had better. HdB
The Rules
The game was run using the Ars Magica 5th edition rules. Yes, tabletop rpg rules! The group rules made it very easy to run the battle. Each unit had statistics for an average member, and we used a simple method to declare if the leadership bonuses were being applied to attack or defence each turn. The movement rates (given on each character sheet) were taken from Lords of Men, as were the average stats for the units and the crossbow rules and ranges. Crossbows actually proved fairly ineffective against well armoured knights, perhaps surprisingly. The answer would be to use the knight’s Brawl (Dodge) or Ride as a Defence rather than there melee Defence when receiving missile fire – see Lords of Men for a discussion. We didn’t, because I have not included that on the character sheets. Add Ride + Quickness to work it out and archery will be much more effective; however as those stats are not given on the sheet for the units I’d default to Defence 5 against crossbows. The most important rule was only characters could take actions against other characters. So no matter if all your men were shot down by Flemish croissbowmen, only the leader of them (a player character) could shoot at your character. The game ran in four phases per turn.
1. Movement. Everyone moved simultaneously. If we had used initiative it could have taken much, much longer. You need a lot of rulers,.and if people come in to contact you work out where. It worked well.
2. Talking. The noise rules were important. Communication was 50cm (Voice range in Ars Magica), or 35cm if a melee combat or baying hound or something else noisy was within 50cm of you. You could shout a few words to any other player in that range. In reality we let people talk in character for a couple of minutes (not the few seconds of the Ars Magica combat round) to anyone they were in communication with.
3.Combat We calculated Initiative normally for each normal melee as it happened. Powers and spells used in combat were resolved in this phase using the normal initiative rules. For determining how the Leadership bonus was applied we used a sort of Paper-Scissor-Stones – players chose scissors for attack, or stone for defence, and their Leadership modifier was applied to the relevant combat score. Despite the madness of trying to run a full scale battle using table top rpg rules, it all went surprisingly smoothly, and even those who had never played Ars Magica before soon got their heads around the combat system. We allowed player characters to expend fatigue levels to boost rolls as in the normal combat rules, but ignored this option for units for the sake of simplicity.
4. Powers Magic and special character powers were resolved in this phase, in order of initiative, unless we had resolved them earlier. A second Storyguide (referee) could have sped things up here significantly, as each involved secret discussions between a player and the referee.Still it was all pretty fast. I think we resolved 9-10 turns in the three hour slot, including all discussion and rules explanations etc. Most people had their characters and a copy of the battlefield of map a few days before the game to plan, which is probably a good idea as some of the characters run to about ten pages or more.
The men of Bury cross the mural bridge in to battle from the Priory. Prior Robert stands on the roof of the Priory Church watching, and Leicester’s captured figure lies on top of a tower with his horse!
So what really happened at Fornham in 1173?
The historical outcome was not that dissimilar to the game one (though I suspect Black Shuck and the Green Children played a less important role in proceedings). ”During the troubled reign of Henry II the Earl of Leicester staged a rebellion. He landed at Walton-on-the Naze with 300 Flemish mercenaries, a body of archers and some forty knights he had persuaded to join his cause. After unsucessfully attacking Dunwich (then an important port) he marched on to Risby, en route to Leicester where presumably he intended to raise a more substantial force” I wrote in my book Spectral Suffolkback in 1990.
“In the meantime the King’s loyal supporters had not been idle. The Lord Chief Justice of England Sir Richard de Lucy gathered together 300 knights and proceeded to Bury where he was joined by the High Constable Sir Hugh de Bohun and the earls of Gloucester, Arundel and Cornwall. Between them they raised a force of some 1,200 Bury men who were willing to fight for their cause and the future of the Crown. (It is ironic that forty two years later the Barons met again at Bury to draw up and prepare the Magna Carta, designed to limit the power of the Crown.) Battle was inevitable. The Rebel forces took the high ground on Barton Hill, and Leicester’s tiny army attempted to ford the Lark. It is said that the Earl’s men were unable to find a crossing place, although this seems hard to believe today, for the river rarely exceeds four feet in depth, although things may have been different then. Perhaps Leicester decided the crossing would disorganise and weary his men and allow the enemy to fall on them from behind. Leicester must have realised defeat was inevitable. None the less he drew up his men and prepared to make a stand on Fornham meadows with the river protecting his right flank. He made a heroic speech, and seems to have truly inspired his road weary and out numbered forces. The battle began with the heroic charge of Walter Fitz-Robert who was beaten back. Then the Earl of Arundel marched forward, only to be met with withering fire from Leicester’s archers. This was followed immediately by a charge by the High Constable’s knights. It is fascinating to try to imagine the armour, plumes and pennants fluttering from the steel tipped lances as the mighty war horses thundered down the hill and across the meadows towards Leicester’s tired men. One hundred men, mainly archers were captured yet still the rebel ranks held.
De Lucy decided enough was enough and through his main force forward to the attack. Leicester’s wife now fled in terror, losing her jewellery and to no avail as she was captured by the (hopefully) gallant knight Sir Walter de Wahull. Leicester saw his mercenaries cut down and no realised the day was lost. Falling back to the parish church of St. Genevieve (this particular building burnt down in 1782) he and his knights made a desparate stand, until overwhelmed by weight of numbers they chose surrender rather than death. It was a wise choice, for the prisoners were merely deported to Normandy and then confined to Calais for their treason… “
In conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed the project, though some one hundred and twenty man hours went in to the preparation and construction of the game. Still all worth while, and possible because of the team of people who worked on it: Becky Smith, Hugh Wake, Thomas Nowell, Phil Jenkins and Lisa Langood all played significant roles in getting the game to fruition, and I wrote the characters and designed the whole things of which I am just proud. I have made the game available to Mark from Grand Tribunal America for use their perhaps in the future, and am happy to share with other Atlas Games promoters from the Atlas Games Special Ops demo team who attend games conventions promoting Ars Magica by running games. Many thanks to John and Michelle Nephew at ATLAS Games, everyone who played and all the delegates of Grand Tribunal 2012.
I’m occasionally approached by other game companies to promote their game by a one off event at a convention – well if I enjoy your game I’m happy to consider it, and you can email me on chrisjensenromer@hotmail.com
Thanks for reaading cj x
Report from Grand Tribunal UK 2012
Grand Tribunal is the Ars Magica and Atlas Games convention held annually in the UK and USA. This year the Sixth Grand Tribunal (UK) took place on the weekend 17th-19th August, and featured 37 delegates and 3 authors from the line, but had a smaller than usual international presence.
Friday evening saw most of the delegates gather in Cheltenham, England before heading off to a local pub where we had a room set aside upstairs. While the weather was extremely warm for most of the weekend, we were able to open windows and the room proved much more suited to our needs than the cellar bar we had used in previous years. Isolated from the rest of the pub it was a private space where we could easily have played boardgames or rpg if we had chosen, but everyone wanted to socialize! one thing that is noticeable about the convention is it has attracted a hardcore of attendees who come very single year, regardless of whether or not they are currently playing Ars Magica, and catching up with old friends is an important part for the experience for many. We even have a few non-gaming ‘friends and family’ who enjoy the event and come along anyway to be sociable, and some of them try a game and get hooked each year. Only the historian David Sivier has so far resisted the temptation to play a game yet come year after year, but we will persuade him next year. One of the more amusing incidents of the weekend was when group of us were outside the pub and found this in the window display of an antiques shop. There we found in the shop window display a Jawa and Stormtrooper costume!
Saturday morning as always saw the big Ars Magica freeform conducted. This year it was Mark Steedman who ran The Tribunal of the Borders, with Loch Leglean and and Stonehenge magi from five covenants trying to resolve their differences and put an end to raiding of the covenants by each other. This was a good game, and raised really interesting issues about what happens when your grogs belong to clans with a mundane tradition of raiding; the covenants very soon are bound to be drawn in to the conflicts. This is just as much a feature of Hibernia as of Loch Leglean and the freeform really brought it home; Burnham has been raided with magical assistance from Horsingas, but the raiding clansmen slain in the attack included some from a third covenant that was not directly involved, except by having grogs who shared a clan with the Horsingas clan raiders and therefore had joined the war party without their magi assenting in any way. There was a huge amount more going on, but I never really learned much of it as my boar Heartbeast Bjornaer was more passionately consumed by his love of truffles, and his motto “I snuffles for the truffles!” It was a marvelous game, and as always people costumed beautifully, and lent costume to others.
After the freeform we took a group photo, with those who wanted to appear, but many players had already changed by the time we had a chance to arrange it back in to normal clothes. Still here are some of the Freeform group…
Some of the freeform “Tribunal of the Borders” players pose after the game…
After the freeform Mystery Playtest One saw a group of magi trying to chase down a diabolist who had betrayed them, and the most outrageous grog ever played by Taryn. Good fun! It is always good that David Chart allows delegates to sign NDA’s and take part in ongoing playtesting of books that are not out yet for Ars. At the same time Andrew ran the Oh, Doctor Bi Sheng! – or the Cathedral and the Bizarre, a very popular scenario he wrote set in medieval Quimper, and Anna ran the only 4th edition game of the weekend The Village Ghost, which I heard good reports of too! It is an interesting feature of Grand Tribunal that 3rd and 4th ed. Ars Magica games are still popular, even today, though 5th ed. is dominant now. Two groups who were playing earlier editions have switched to 5th ed. since coming to GTUK last time.
The next session again saw three games; Tom ran Mystery Playtest Two, and Andrew S ran The Jerbiton Summit, a seven player mini-freeform that proved very engaging and featured a House Jerbiton special convention seeking to resolve a Papal Schism – at least I believe that is what it was about, as sadly I never got to play as I was running the other event in the slot (see below). Both proved very popular, and I really look forward to trying The Jerbiton Summit myself next year. You can read the background for it here.
My game in this three hour slot was based on a real historical event from 1173: The Battle of Fornham, which took place between the rebel forces of the Duke of Leicester and the royalist forces of Henry II under Humphrey III de Bohun and Richard de Lucy, along with the townsmen of Bury St. Edmunds and various other loyalist knights. Becky, Hugh, Tom Phil and I built the terrain and counters and miniatures, and I believe fourteen players participated in the three hour battle, which despite appearances was as much a normal Ars Magica tabletop game as it was a wargame. I think Nick’s account of Leicester’s experience sums it up nicely –
Poor Robert of Leicester – Luck/God was certainly not on his side that day! His overconfidence led him to lead a heroic charge to destroy the southern bridge (over a drainage ditch), where he was met by Reginald de Dunstanville, Earl of Cornwall. A battle ensued between the knights of Leceister and Cornwall as the Leceister knights attempted to destroy the bridge. Leciester’s knights suffered 3 casualties and took 3 Kent knights prisoner, but Robert himself was gravely wounded against the Cornish lord, who smote Robert’s head open. Eyes full of blood, Robert botched his retreat and fell from his horse. Taken prisoner by Cornwall, who took him bound to the Priory, he remained there for the rest of the battle. His leaderless knights were overwhelmed by the Royalists, and Cornwall impaled Robert on a red hot poker and hung him from the Priory walls, as a warning to all other godless rebels
Rather more happened than Nick describes, but that was perhaps the deciding moment of the battle, when the dice proved completely against him. I wrote another blog post describing what happened overall from each players perspective, and have asked them to email me accounts of the battle as it was so amusing. Here is a shot of the game in progress, as a vision of Saint Dympna causes many men to fall to their knees (the upside down tiles). Anyway a full report will follow!
Battle of Fornham 1173 game
I must say it was huge amounts of effort to put this game together, but I thought it thoroughly worth it. Utterly chaotic, it really did serve to teach me quite a bit about why Leicester probably lost on the day, and showed standard Ars Magica 5th edition group combat rules can easily handle huge field battles, not just skirmishes, without using the character centered more narrative Lords of Men rules which are still great for typical tabletop play. iN a sense this was coming full circle for me because we playtested the 5th edition group combat rules using the Battle of Fornham as a scenario (part thereof, on a much smaller scale) about a decade ago. Yes, playtesters really do play test rules, despite authors occasional doubts!
After Fornham it was the always popular raffle, and the Meet the Authors session. The Raffle prizes this year included lovely prizes supplied by Atlas Games and by Sub Rosa magazine. If you play Ars and don’t already subscribe to Sub Rosa you really should consider it now, especially as it is a .pdf download so you can do it immediately! The Raffle raised £201 for good causes in the end, plus a small amount more on Sunday I have yet to count.
A popular new innovation this year was a deal with Charlie’s Chip Shop arranged by Andrew my co-host, who took orders and then went down and collected the food so much less gaming was missed than in previous years and we could move straight on to the evening session, where The Unquiet Grave by Leif, A Walk in the Woods by Hakon and The Shadow Over Carlisle by Lloyd were run. I chose not to play in this slot as I was to be honest utterly exhausted, but it worth noting that every session of the weekend (apart from the Friday evening social and the big freeform one) had at least three games running and no one went without a game who wanted to play. In fact we had spare slots in some games, but none so low as to prevent them running, though we did not get round to running Nathan Hook’s excellent To Strive… this year as we had so many freeforms on offer in the end. Note for delegates in future years – please tell me about your game running plans earlier! Tom & Lloyd and myself each ran two games each, but many delegates offered a game and all three of us would have been happy to run less games and let others act as Storyguides. I ran games with 14 and 9 players, without a beta storyguide to help out in others, and as GT grows in popularity we need more games. I’d rather have too much on offer than too little, and if a game has to be dropped because we can’t get the players then it can always be run in later years, as has been shown by games like the Tribunal of the Borders which Mark wrote for last year but finally ran this year to great praise. Next year I think we will introduce a game bidding system, by which potential GM’s will be invited to submit pitches much earlier, and we will have even more games on offer, so some can be smaller and less wearying for the poor harassed storyguides.
BY the time we closed the venue for the night I was utterly exhausted and ready for my bed, but I ended up doing game prep for the morning and then wandering down to meet a few delegates at the Bon Appetit 99p cafe for breakfast.
Sunday we opened at 10am and ran through till close at 4pm, and there were three games in this session. One was absolutely fascinating – Tom Nowell came up with the idea of running a game with the players as Amazon sorceresses from Rival Magics. Again I never got to play, but I heard good things and it was nice to see some of the Rivals get their day in the sun. I’d like ot hear more about how this game went. Lloyd heroically stepped forward again to run Mystery Playtest 3 .
My last game of the weekend was a little unusual, in that written originally for 8 players (!) I ended up with 9 and had to turn down two more potential players on the morning (they did get to join another game though.) Lost in the Wash once again returned to the pre-1220 period, this time 1217, and my love of East Anglia. It was October 1217, Louis of France has seized the throne and King John was at Lynn desperate to reach loyal allies at Newark, a few days travel away, as the French and Baron’s armies approached. Waking up feverish after a heavy meal of peaches, he gathered together all the people he could trust, and with eight companions set out across The Fens carrying the Crown Jewels of England in their saddle bags. Every student of English history knows what happened next, but you should not believe everything you read in the chronicles… The players were delightful for this game, and it resolved really well at the end just in time for the mad clear up session.
After an evening with the Norwegian delegates I crawled in to my bed last night utterly shattered, but I had a wonderful weekend, saw some outstanding character roleplaying and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Huge thanks are due to so many people that I have posted a Credits file to the GT list, but especial thanks ot Andrew Oakley who as co-host made my ever more ambitious plans possible, and whose magnificent organisation of many aspects of the project meant that everything feel perfectly in to place.
We have not yet confirmed a date or location for 2013, but the default will be Cheltenham again, on the weekend of 16th to 18th August. Don’t make hard plans until it si all confirmed yet, as Cambridge or Trondheim, Norway may yet turn out to be the venue and the date will change then!
Thank you to all the lovely people who attended.
I’ll leave you with a photo of the ever-cool Nick as a wild Scottish magus…
Report from the Grand Tribunal of Stonehenge: Ars Magica UK convention 2010
OK, it’s all over. I am just working out how many hours went in to organising it all: at least 70, as the Cheltenham con is not part of a larger event, so I end up doing pretty much everything. Still it was worth it just to meet some lovely folks, and spend a weekend dedicated to one of my favourite roleplaying games.
For anyone reading this who does not really know me well, Ars Magica is a roleplaying game set in 13th century Europe, as it was believed to be. Dragons live in the mountains, wizards study in lonely towers, and faeries haunt the forests. It’s not a computer game — it is a game played like Dungeons & Dragons by people with pencils, paper and funny shaped dice. This was the fourth annual Ars Magica convention here in the UK; I ran the first two, Neil and Sheila ran last years in Cambridge and will host the event in 2011, and there have been three now in the US as well, held the same weekend. This was the largest so far: a total of 37 people being at at least some of the event, though not all were gamers, a few were guests or friends dropping in to say hi!
Woodcut of the freeform players by Pitt Murmann
The venue is great, and usually very busy with community events and classes, so we were lucky to get it for a whole day and Sunday morning.
We opened on Friday with a very cheap meal at the Happy Garden restaurant, a local Chinese. It was great to gather 24 people together and just chat, and enjoy relaxing. For the Norwegian contingent it was probably a much needed rest. Of course the day started much earlier for me and Becky, dashing around meeting delegates, and doing all kinds of preparation work — but that’s what happens when you host!
After the meal we made our way to The Cotswolds Pub where David Sivier gave an excellent paper on Fairy Beliefs in the 13th century & beyond. I learned quite a bit – I was not aware that changelings did not appear till the 16th century – up till then the fairies just left a wooden image in the place of kidnapped folks. The bit about the bloke who interrupted the fairy attempt to steal his wife and kept the captured wooden simulacra they had planned to leave as a useful bit of furniture made me laugh! I noted a number of similarities in the narratives with my recent work on poltergeists, and others had many questions for David who came all the way from Bristol to give the talk. Thanks Dave, and a belated happy birthday mate! (Same day as mine, the 23rd August). I was too tired to say much,a nd fighting sleep – because I was exhausted, but I hope Dave posts it somewhere on the web!
After that people just chatted or played card or board games – it was one o clock before people departed for their digs, even Lisa (who does not game) staying till the end, and I got home to find a problem with both my keyboard and printer, so much later before I finally managed to grab some much needed sleep. The gas was off: we have had a few leaks in the street recently – and it was morning before I could grab a quick wash and run down to open up the venue, Gas Green community centre. It’s a great venue, with two generous sized halls, a few rooms upstairs and a kitchen area, and served our needs well.
The guests were rather late this year, despite good weather; we were due to begin games at ten, but it took till eleven fr most people to gather, so we proceeded straight to the freeform, Puck’s Dell. I had worked rather frantically to complete this in time, and while it ended up with 23 players rather thn the planned 25, it was I think a success. Well at least most of the feedback I got was very positive. The sight of 20+ people dressed up running around scheming, dealing, plotting and manipulating each other was really entertaining, though as I was the only referee I was rather busy, and utterly exhausted by the end, where many true identities became apparent – think of it as As You Like It meets Ars Magica and you get the atmosphere and a rough sense of what it was about. It is impossible to single out any one player, but it was amazing how Andrew O. composed an eight line song and melody (with help from Taryn) and got everyone to perform it while also trying to get his non-existent covenfolk (recently changed back from mice) to meet the many demands of magi and companions, and I think Nick Galaxy was absolutely amazing as Lugh the Apprentice! Lloyd however was disappointed that his character the priest Father Gerard did not get to conduct any marriages, a fact given the plot I find astonishing, but then again he did not get to conduct any funerals – the only “death” was Sir Pharisee, turned in to a collection of sticks and flowers. Barrie looked awesome as Geron, and Black Tom was also a lot of fun to watch scheming. However really I saw very little of the game; though the fireworks between Kirstie and Andrew Sceats characters at the end was really fun!
Freeform game at Grand Tribunal 2010
For those who don’t know what a freeform is: it’s a bit like a huge murder mystery game, where everyone is given a character sheet with what they know about their characters and then has objectives to meet. It is hard to explain, and for a lot of our players was the first time they had tried it, but they really got in to it,and Daniel Vandenburg and Ivan really worked hard making tabards and stuff, and were excellent fun throughout.
Anyhow, after the freeform I was utterly exhausted, but it was straight in to games. Tom Nowell ran a mystery playtest, the first of three over the weekend, for Atlas Games by special permission of line Editor David Chart, with the players signing Non-Disclosure Agreements. This was part of a book still “in production” for Ars Magica, so I can’t say anything at all about the session (or the other two) but hopefully the feedback provided will prove useful for the authors.
Meanwhile Becky and I played Leif Olav Josang’s The Unquiet Grave, a wonderfully written game for grogs, with elements of low humour and high adventure, set in 13th century York (which happens to be where our Tuesday night saga is also set). Its a great adventure, possibly the best I have played for Ars Magica, highly recommended. Leif should publish it on the Special Ops Atlas Games site or in the Sub Rosa fanzine. Becky had never played Ars Magica before, and had only roleplayed twice, but she enjoyed herself too.
At the same time Nick Galaxy ran the entire Fourth Crusade, including the sieges of Zara and Constantinople, in just four hours. only caught glimpses of it, but it looked great, and I heard the row between the Doge Dandolo and Boniface and things seemed to pan out as they did historically, except Zara surrendered and was spared sacking. I wish I could have played that as well; but we had to reshuffle time slots, so I missed out. I must ask Nick to let me see the character sheets though, because it looked like an incredible game, and because I am one of the authors of the latest Ars Magica supplement The Sundered Eagle which covers Constantinople and the Tribunal of Thebes, and indeed wrote the “modern” history bit.
The Sundered Eagle - out soon!
I’m going to have to speed up or this will be immensely long; the evening saw only one game run, as Lloyd wanted more time to prep hs mystery playtest. I think a boardgame was played, but I wandered off to get food, letting Tom Nowell take my place in Andrew Sceats’ The Archmage is Busy; he had just run a session and I felt he ought to be allowed to play because he could not make the Sunday morning. I think it was run with 3rd edition rules, and apparently it was a fantastic scenario – maybe someone can write a review, without too many spoilers as I hope to play it in the future?
I got to relax a bit in the evening and chat freeforms with Mark Steedman, games with the Mark S and Ars writing with Mark Lawford. Then it was home fr a much needed shower, and last minute prep for Sunday! The Author’s panel featured Neil, Sheila Mark Lawford and myself, and we read a message from David Chart where many forthcoming releases were discussed or hinted at – but no we can’t tell you, yoiu had to be there! Thanks to Lloyd, Mark S and Andrew O. we managed link up with Caifornia, and chatted to folks at the Grand Tribiunal US event briefly before we lost connection I think, but that was fun too, and the raffles raised £187 for our three charities, which was amazing.
Sunday opened promptly, and all the remaining delegates (bar Sheila who was off to church) were in a game; well Becky watched mine. Two were Mystery Playtests, one run by Kev Sides, one by Lloyd so I can’t say anything about them as they are covered by the NDA. I myself ran Twilight Fades - a very unusual Ars Magica game, in that it was set in Summer 2010 with four bored eleven year olds banned from TV and trying to find something to do in a rural Suffolk village – but by the end it was classic Ars Magica, kinda, sorta! I really enjoyed running it – excellent performances all round, Barrie James and Barry Cowden were hilarious, Mark Lawford somehow kept them moving and was the sensible one but a pleasure to play with, and Daniel Vandenberg’s Matilda was priceless – “I want to be a Ballerina!” Well soon she was a ballista – not quite what she had in mind!
And then it was one o clock, all too soon, and time for everyone to go home. Not that everyone did – for many it was straight down to Wetherspoons for the Flying Ship Design contest! I had to pop up to meet JK at the Queen’s Hotel, but caught them later, and that evening was treated to a lovely birthday lunch by Leif, Karl and anders before they set off home for Norway in the morning.
Despite being utterly exhausted I enjoyed a wonderful weekend, and will do it all again in 2012! next year Neil and Sheila are hosting again, and I hope to make it, finances permitting.
So how did it go? Really well I think. I was shattered for my birthday on Monday – but we had fun, and what was noticeable this year was how much the emphasis was on grogs and non-magi characters. Puck’s Dell has Grogs, Nobles, Magi, Apprentices, Magical People/Faeries and Covenfolk as the five types of character – I hope all were equally fun to play. Twilight Fades, The Archmage is Busy and The Unquiet Grave all emphasized grogs. It just goes to show what you can do with the Ars Magica setting, even without your magus in the limelight, and how much potential troupe play has.
Apologies to anyone I have not name-checked in this brief run through — it was lovely to meet you all. I have to dash, but see you all again in 2012. Next year Neil and Sheila are hosting again, in Cambridge, as part of the Consternation con.
cj x
Grand Tribunal is held by kind permission of Atlas Games. “Grand Tribunal” and the “Grand Tribunal” logo are trademarks of Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games, used with permission.A Hotel Oddity
OK, so not much going on here. I’m busy organising hotels for the Grand Tribunal rpg convention — and I have noticed a rather curious fact, something that maybe some of my friends from the hospitality industry can comment upon – in the process. I was thinking of trying to organise a block booking for the convention delegates – we could book quite a lot of rooms in theory. I checked the hotel prices online from their websites (not third party bargain sites) and established prices. Then I called round, cited the number of rooms i was interested in, and found — the prices cited with the group booking were higher than the rates currently on offer. The discount appears to be applied to the standard rate — whereas by booking a couple of month early, one gets a cheaper rate. So by booking using a group discount option, it would actually cost me more per night per room than if the guest just book individually online now. Curious, and a fact well worth considering if you should ever have reason to want to book a lot of hotel rooms for any reason.
This strikes me as bizarre, simply because how many people who need ten or more rooms for an event will be booking them in the late period immediately before the event? If you are, the group booking discount is excellent sure, as it saves you on the standard rate — but otherwise just book at the cheaper advance rates most hotels charge. Also, hotel prices seem to be going up — they cynic in me wonders if this is just because I have made so many enquiries that I have pushed the prices up, but maybe rooms are selling out? Anyone have knowledge of the workings of hotel pricing structures?
Grand Tribunal 2009: Medieval magicians gather in Cambridge! 31st July-2 August 2009
Constitution is a roleplaying, science fiction, fantasy and filk convention
Grand Tribunal 2009, part of Constitution
Those of you who know me well know I write for Atlas Games’ wonderful tabletop roleplaying game of medieval magic, Ars Magica, and that for the last two years I have organized and hosted the first convention, Grand Tribunal 2007 and 2008 attracting fans of the game from as far afield as California and Japan, as well as European fans from Germany, France and Norway. Last year we had an American version run by the excellent Erik Dahl. Well we are doing it again!
This year GT is part of a larger convention — “Constitution is a roleplaying, science fiction, fantasy and filk convention run by the fans responsible for Recombination, to be held at New Hall, Cambridge on 31st July-2 August 2009.”
Among other things Constitution is the 2009 British Roleplaying Society convention, Unicon 23, Harmuni 4 and the 2009 Ars Magica Grand Tribunal, bringing you roleplaying, science fiction and fantasy, and filk!”
Yes I had to look filk up as well! For those who know Kevin Sides, it’s the kind of folk loves SF or contemporary folk he loves – the name Voltaire springs to mind, anyway wiki tells us — Filk is a musical culture, genre, and community tied to science fiction/fantasy fandom. The genre has been active since the early 1950s, and played primarily since the mid-1970s.
More on Filk here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filk_music .
Anyway I’ll be there talking about Ars Magica, running Ars Magica games and possibly another one of my “freeform live action” games where you can dress up and be a wizard solving a mystery in the finest in ubergeekery. A large number of freeform games (the dress up and play a character in a murder mystery sort of thing) and table top games ( a bit like Dungeons and Dragons,. only not Dungeons and Dragons – well I’m sure there will be some D&D games going on) and many other events are scheduled, so do consider coming along for a truly different weekend! If you have never done this sort of thing before I will be delighted to help out and act as your guide, and if you don’t enjoy it show you the shops and pubs of Cambridge. So even if you have no idea what I am on about, why not consider coming and seeing the strange world of conventions for yourself? For more details click on the banners above.
Hope to see you there!
cj x
Grand Tribunal is held by kind permission of Atlas Games. “Grand Tribunal” and the “Grand Tribunal” logo are trademarks of Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games, used with permission. Grand Tribunal is Atlas Games excellent board game of magic!Great News – and a missed opportunity.
My friends Andrew and Mel are having twins! Many many congratulations! I have always been fond of twins (Martin Peters and Hugh will get the joke at least…)
Excellent, wonderful news, though I was dreadfully troubled, nay mortified, by the tragic news on Andrew’s LiveJournal that a relative threw out some 2nd ed and 3rd ed Ars Magica books that were in their attic during the clear out.
Well a bit anyway!
Not just because obviously this is a terrible sacrilege (and deepy painful to report, though insignificant in terms of the joyous twin news!), but because I am fairly sure there was a copy of The Maleficium (I have been trying to get a secondhand copy from ebay for eight years now, which might give you some idea of its second hand value) and a number of other books I have not seen for a while in there, and mainly because I know what they were worth. Bugger, we could have sold them on ebay and – well I think I’d better not say what they would have fetched if sold, lest I weep! 
Oh well – the books were lost anyway, but it is a real shame that they were not subject to a MuTe (with a He requisite) to create hot gold for the infants, and pay towards the costs of the unexpected joyful arrivals!.
In case you were wondering Ars Magica is the roleplaying game of life as a 13th century wizard. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Magic-Ars-Magica/dp/1589780701/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236131959&sr=8-2) I have written for a couple of books for the 5th edition of the line, and organised Grand Tribunal 2007 and 2008. And yes I know I have gone on about roleplaying books and said nothing about the twins – I don’t know anymore, that is why, but best of luck to the proud parents to be!
And if anyone out there has any unwanted second hand Ars Magica books, and in particular a copy of The Maleficium… do think of me, and have pity!
cj x
2 comments