Notes on writing Ars Magica material – a philosophical guide for new authors

Now that there has been an explosion in creativity due to the open license, and now that I’m editing a fanzine, it’s time to give quick tips to beginning, commercial authors. Some of the advice that follows is coloured by my preferences as a reader. There’s no need to point out that there isn’t one true way to write. In response I’d note that there are, regardless, many bad ways.

Pick the obvious title

Don’t pick evocative titles: use informative ones. You need to call your piece something, and the temptation is always there to make it obscure. I feel this pull too, because our game has so much Latin drifting about. Mythic Venice spent a year being called “Serenissima”. The roughwork to see if I could make Mythic Europe Magazine was called “Alvearium”. Potential readers should look at the title and know if they are interested in reading the contents. If you can’t manage that, your subtitle or blurb should do that work. Remember, building mystery is explicitly not your job when you are selling the book.

Write for use, not for narrative

There is a strong temptation is to write adventures chronologically so that they end with a surprise at the end of the document. This is a poor technique because you are not writing fiction to enjoy linearly, you are writing a technical manual for reference by a storyteller during a game session. You don’t follow a recipe and discover at the send of you have stir-fry or a chocolate cake. Twists are for the in-game action, not for game writing that supports the action.

Don’t tell me I can do what I want

I know I can do what I want: what I want is to save time and run a good game session. I’m here for your ideas on how to do that. If I open a cookbook and it says “So, throw in whatever you want” I think “That’s terrible advice and my chocolate cake will taste horrible, once I add this vegemite.” I’m reading your article to get your ideas, so give them to me, don’t tell me to make them up myself.

Make hard choices

Don’t hide behind mystery. If no-one knows where your monster-filled hole in the ground comes from either make that a plot hook or shut up about how mysterious it is. Your job as the author is to give the reader ideas they haven’t had. It is far better for you to take a big swing and have the reader dislike it than to just fizzle out with “…do what you want”.

By the way, I was wrong, dark chocolate tastes lovely with Vegemite.

Write in modern English

Do not write in “cod English”, the technical term for the faux-Shakespearean stuff that seems popular. It comes from a particular place and time, which is far after the usual game period in a language that doesn’t exist yet. It has rules of grammar around simple nouns like “thou” which authors often fail to follow. It makes your work difficult to understand for people who speak English as a second language. If you speak American English please be aware that you likely have idioms that stand out particularly harshly when you force them into cod English. It’s fine to sound American throughout your piece, but it sounds weird if you put on a mockney accent for parts of it. Don’t not attempt to give tone by writing olde-timey words unless you know what they mean, and there is no better modern word.

Go through and remove the word “will”

I know it’s in the article a few paragraphs ago, but do as I say. Don’t slip into the future tense when you are describing things the characters might do in the future. It doesn’t work in Ars Magica. I’ve seen complete loops where a character considers what they might do, and as they work through the logistics of the idea they inhabit three whole tenses.

Assume the player characters are going to, loosely, follow the story. Yes, yes, there’s an argument about railroading. As the author, that is not your problem: that’s the problem of each storyguide at their table. Your job is to give the storyguide material. How they use it is their sandbox is a different question.

Pick one strong word

Try not to describe one thing with two adjectival phrases that sort of get in the region of the thing, and give its vibe, you know? Just pick one strong word. Similarly, having picked a strong word, don’t water it down by padding it with “often”, “probably”, “likely”. Either the egg goes into the cake or it does not go into the cake. It does not float in quantum superposition over the cake. Make hard choices – take big swings.