Wizard Playbook Names

Wizard Playbook Names

Wizard Playbook Names

I’m having some trouble coming up with cool names for the playbooks in Wizard World (my Ars Magica hack). At the moment I’ve got:

Artisan

Analyst

Politician

Scholar

Warrior

They are functional, and they accurately describe the angles the playbooks take, but they don’t have much… pizazz.

Hit me with your best Ars-Magica-appropriate playbook names! (or tell me why I should just leave them the way they are).

NOTE: While I do like them, I feel like the classic D&D sub-types (diviner, evoker, etc) are too close to D&D to be appropriate for Ars Magica.

34 thoughts on “Wizard Playbook Names”

  1. Robert Bohl interesting. That gives us:

    Artifex

    Investigator

    Orator

    Scholar

    Bellator

    I shied away from including too much Latin in case it made the game unapproachable (jargon heavy) but those are actually not so bad.

  2. Huh. Who knew there was so much Latin in English? =)

    If you’re interested in other terms, perhaps:

    Maker

    Seeker

    Influencer

    Thinker

    Contender (?)

    or

    Architect

    Seeker

    Politico

    Theorist

    Millitant

  3. Anyone else notice the almost perfect alignment of these 5 templates and the 5 Techniques?

    Artisan >> Creo

    Analyst >> Intelligo

    Politician >> Regio

    Scholar >> Muto

    Warrior >> Perdo

    Okay, scholar/muto is pretty weak. But otherwise…

  4. Jeremy Strandberg yeah, Muto is a serious troublemaker. 😉

    Paki Spivey the Scholar focuses on books and experiments in the lab while the Analyst is out in the field gathering information. I know, I know, that’s not what you think of when you say Analyst. That’s one of the reasons I started this thread 🙂

  5. Maybe use mystical symbols for each one, instead of literal names? “The Sword” instead of Warrior, “The Eye” instead of the Scholar, etc.

  6. Jeremy Strandberg totally by coincidence. I think it’s just a natural result of the way techniques line up with typical approaches to problem solving.

  7. The master of transcendent beauty and other works of the hands

    The seer of hinden patterns and natural conclusions

    The spinner of lies and all other important truths

    The knower of all important thoughts and many that are less so

    The bloody hand that know naught but destruction

  8. Gotta love this community! How about:

    The Anvil, who masters craft and invention

    The Eye, who masters secrets and perception

    The Voice, who masters motives and manipulation

    The Quill, who masters lore and erudition

    The Blade, who masters blood and destruction

    Too cute?

  9. Jared Hunt I feel like that it’s either troublesome or an opportunity.

    Like, when I see that sort of close-but-not-quite alignment, it makes me think that my categorizations are askew. I’d be tempted to look at the playbooks and ask if I’m categorizing them on the right axis.

    So for example, you’re currently doing it based on verbs: the artisan creates, the analyst investigates, the politician influences, the scholar studies, the warrior fights. But (assuming you’re using Ars Magic techniques) you’ve already got a series of 5 crucial verbs (create/know/control/change/destroy) that PCs can be better or worse at. It feels like two gears that almost fit together but don’t.

    So I’d encourage you to consider making the playbooks based on something else. “House” is an obvious choice (if going full Ars Magica), but other categories that jump to mind include:

    Motive: Fame, Respect, Knowledge, Power, Challenge, Vengeance, Faith, Purpose, etc.

    Age: Spring (apprentice or new initiate), Summer (flexing your muscle), Autumn (established & clinging to power), Winter (immensely powerful but losing it)

    Tradition: fae magic, diabolic magic, elemental magic, “internal” magic, animistic/shamanic magic, formally schooled in magic, etc. (this gets pretty close the Houses, but could probably do so without having them rigidly defined)

    Alternately, you could look to more closely align the playbooks with the techniques. So there’d be a “Creo” playbook and an “Intelligo” playbook, etc.

  10. How about using a compilation of “playbooks” or backgrounds like uncharted worlds? You could then have multiple choices having a House background, a tradition backgrounds, etc.

  11. I’d generally advice against making playbooks about what a character is good at. That was what I first tried with my Star Trek hack, so sure, you have Security Officers and Doctors. The result was quite dull. I think a pretty good test is: Could a character dislike belonging to that playbook and still be it?

    So “expectations that the (magic) world has about you”, might work nicely. The suggestions by Jeremy Strandberg point in the same direction.

    Like

    The Councilman

    The Apprentice

    The Enforcer

    The Pawn of Higher Powers

    The Mad One

    The Foreigner

  12. 1of3 I really like where you’re going with that. It means pretty much scrapping the current character creation section entirely, but maybe that’s what I need to do…

  13. I don’t have any ideas for you at the moment, but, I have wanted to play Ars Arcana or some incarnation of Mage for a while. I’ll keep my eye out to see if you complete this, as, perhaps I’ll have a chance to test it out. Or better yet, please let me know if you plan to run it online.

  14. As someone who played the heck out of Ars Magica for a decade: why are you not using the houses with the serial numbers filed off?

    Firelords

    Beastwalkers

    The Hidden Mystics

    Messenger House

    The Fair Affiliates

    The Order of Magic

    Wisdom Warriors

    Artificer’s Guild

    Etc, etc. In AM, the number one most important aspect is what House you are as a mage, not your personal quirks.

    (Also I am obviously interested in this hack!)

  15. Meguey Baker Thanks!

    The first iteration used the houses as playbooks but one of the most common pieces of feedback I got was that people didn’t seem to like that format. House is still an important factor in character creation in this version but it’s a secondary choice…

    Looking back at the last few months of playtesting, I think you’re right – house is such an important part of ArM it deserves to be front and centre.

  16. I’m sorry Jared Hunt, but I think I’m going to have to use all the suggestions I just game you to make a try at my own game (too in love with a possible route to take). On the plus side if it works out somebody will get to play The Wretched Master of Transcendent Beauty of The Unstained Butchers of Jilo.

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