Each player having more than one character when the primary character lacks opportunity or reason to participate in a session (typically due to laboratory or library activity), a secondary character is played.Alternatively a troupe may select one player as "alpha" story guide with responsibility for the overall plot, and one or more "beta" story guides to run peripheral sessions and/or stories. This scheme has been de-emphasised in recent editions in Fifth Edition it is relegated to an optional play style described at the back of the book. alternating by play session, 'chapter' of a story, or at the whim of the troupe) Each player having an opportunity to be Story Guide.Early editions recommended that the players collaborate to create the campaign world and story with: The current edition (the game's fifth) was written by David Chart, and published in 2004 by Atlas Games, who continue to develop new material for it.Īrs Magica was one of the first examples of a Troupe system. The game was originally developed by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen, with its first edition published in 1987. The players' involvement revolves around an organization of magi and their allies and foes both mundane and supernatural. Lion Rampant, White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Atlas GamesĪrs Magica is a role-playing game set in 'Mythic Europe' - a historically grounded version of Europe and the Levant around AD 1200, with the added conceit that conceptions of the world prevalent in folklore and institutions of the High Middle Ages are factual reality (a situation known informally as the 'medieval paradigm').