One Mechanic Review: Magic Realm

This is another great mechanic write-up!

I really appreciate the chit system that Magic Realm uses, and it is actually one of the more easily grokked mechanics of the game. As other folks in the thread have mentioned, it gives Magic Realm a feel that other games just don't offer. Of the games that I have played, the one that offers the closest type of combat is, of all things, Mage Knight. The mechanics are vastly different, but the resulting combats are similarly puzzle-based. That is, in both games a player tends to know going into a fight whether they will be victorious or not. The biggest difference between the two is that Magic Realm is so much less forgiving: one slip-up and your character is dead dead dead.

And that brings me to the topic of implementing the mechanic in other games. I do think that the chit system itself could be used in a modern game. It's easy to imagine the chits being replaced by tokens or cards. The parts of Magic Realm that I think are probably (and lamentably) forever in the gaming past are the less than heroic aspects of the game (tons of hiding, for example, whether you're a sneaky rogue or a knight in shining armor) and the extreme disparities in character abilities (sometimes you're playing a character that basically has to flit about the map, avoiding combat entirely while you scoop up what scraps of treasure that you can find). I just don't think that there is a large pool of players out there who would expect and enjoy that type of thing from a modern "beat them down and take their stuff" fantasy game. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

Feelitmon wrote: . . . (sometimes you're playing a character that basically has to flit about the map, avoiding combat entirely while you scoop up what scraps of treasure that you can find). I just don't think that there is a large pool of players out there who would expect and enjoy that type of thing from a modern "beat them down and take their stuff" fantasy game. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

I think that would depend on how you sell it. There's a lot of competitive gamers out there that would leap at the chance to weasel a win, provided it was not seen as less valid. You need to sell a thief as a thief, and provide him with a range of options deemed valid for him.

Considering the modern "point salad" concept of scoring, something like Magic Realm's less heroic approaches could work, but you'd have to burn those concepts into the chip, really calling them out and explaining their value in the writing of the rules.

Space Ghost wrote: Sag -- I'm in the market for "more is more"

Says the man posting in the Shadows of Malice Megathread. Any other recent games scratching this same More is More itch? Short of wargames there isn't much, and heck, I'd wager most Big games are WWII, and a fair slice of those Eastern Front.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: I think that would depend on how you sell it. There's a lot of competitive gamers out there that would leap at the chance to weasel a win, provided it was not seen as less valid. You need to sell a thief as a thief, and provide him with a range of options deemed valid for him.

Considering the modern "point salad" concept of scoring, something like Magic Realm's less heroic approaches could work, but you'd have to burn those concepts into the chip, really calling them out and explaining their value in the writing of the rules.

That's a good point, yeah. You're right, something like that could work if they were to highlight that factor in the rules and marketing. Hoo boy, it would have to be a bit more balanced than Magic Realm is as published though. From what I've heard, there are certain characters that are acknowledged by experienced players as being simply superior to the others. Perhaps this newer game that we're talking about would have to hang a lantern on that type of thing by stating up front that the power disparity is a form of handicapping.

Sagrilarus wrote: Any other recent games scratching this same More is More itch? Short of wargames there isn't much, and heck, I'd wager most Big games are WWII, and a fair slice of those Eastern Front.

I am an unapolagetic and enthusiastic fan of Duel of Ages 2, and I think that it qualifies as a More Is More game of the type that you're talking about. In an interview by our own Michael Barnes the designer confirmed that Hamblen was an influence in the game's design. And while the breadth of the game is what one first notices upon seeing its hundreds of characters and cards, there is a lot of depth in the design. The designer's ongoing strategy guide at BGG shows just how much: The Duel of Ages II Strategy Guide .

I tried playing Magic Realm about a year ago. I bought a copy, read all the rulebooks and played both a couple of solo games on the tabletop and some on Realmspeak. I liked it - especially because of the combat feeling very different as described - but the overhead was just too tremendous when compared to the story created. This thread makes me wanna give it another go (I never really made it to magic), but at the same time I remember spending about six or seven turns (out of 16) trying to find some treasure at a treasure site and then failing. That wasn't much fun.

iguanaDitty wrote: I don't know if he quite fits but Christian Marcussen immediately came to mind. I like Merchants & Marauders well enough but what he's done with Clash of Cultures is simply superb. There is a lot of complexity hardbaked into the advances and then even more with the expansion.

It's interesting that you bring up Merchants & Marauders in a discussion about Hamblen games. I see M&M as a complete replacement for Merchant of Venus. The right parts were streamlined, but the sandbox-y options and dynamic economy shine just as brightly if not more so in Marcussen's game. I would be highly interested in seeing a fantasy adventure game from him.

I think Magic Realm is one of the masterpieces of the hobby and this great dissection of one of its most notable features helps explain why it is such a singular, unparalleled design. But it also points to the reasons why Magic Realm is very much a stylistic dead end. Hamblen was writing that game back when the impetus in hobby design was focused very much on simulation, so conceptually the game simulates rather than abstracts. Now, that sounds great and all, but the reality of it is that results in all of the overhead and complexity that really kind of burden the game and for many folks, make it borderline unplayable. Hamblen, at least in this game and also in Gunslinger, is very much an "inclusive" designer rather than an "editorial" one. He wants the whole experience, the finer details. But that is really kind of at odds with the notion of approachable, playable games that strike a more agreeable balance between abstraction and detail.

Even getting into the 1980s, Magic Realm starts to look antiquated even though that high-level pitch of using game process and rules to define a very specific fantasy setting with highly detailed blow-by-blow combat remains something that designers still aspire to do even today. There really aren't many games that manage both such a huge macro-level sense of setting and that micro-level sense of moment-to-moment action. Gunslinger would be the only thing that comes close, but even then you can see that the design is much more streamlined, focused and manageable. Even though it is, by most standards, still balls-ass weird and unlike anything else ever made.

This chit system was the first point at which I thought Magic Realm was really something special. The first time I saw it working (after a lot of groupthink sorting it out), it was like "holy shit, this is brilliant". But that doesn't necessarily mean that it is timeless.

Slightly OT: in terms of simulation overhead vs. depth of narrative, what are people's opinions concerning Phil Eklund's High Frontier? I've been considering that game for awhile now, but I keep pulling back due to many of the same reasons people list for Magic Realm.

Frohike wrote: Slightly OT: in terms of simulation overhead vs. depth of narrative, what are people's opinions concerning Phil Eklund's High Frontier? I've been considering that game for awhile now, but I keep pulling back due to many of the same reasons people list for Magic Realm.

High Frontier is hard because its rulebook sucks. Magic Realm is hard because it's hard.

Barnes wrote: but the reality of it is that results in all of the overhead and complexity that really kind of burden the game and for many folks, make it borderline unplayable. Hamblen . . . wants the whole experience, the finer details. But that is really kind of at odds with the notion of approachable, playable games . . .

Yep, and I think that's as much a function of the audience Hamblen was aiming at as anything else. This was a game designed to appeal to true nerds, nerds that took pride in playing something complicated. The modern "hobby game" market doesn't look like that anymore. It's a much more mainstream crowd, and that crowd is much more interested in playing a different title each week, 52 weeks a year.

In 1979 Magic Realm likely had half a dozen (maybe?) competitors in its genre and part of the market. Remember -- this was hitting the stores at the same time as AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. This is a 36 year old game. Virtually zero competition from video games as well. Spending a weekend learning something like this was considered a pretty solid use of the time.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: High Frontier is hard because its rulebook sucks. Magic Realm is hard because it's hard.
S.

I dunno, I think High Frontier is also hard because you're calculating rocket science on the fly. And yes, it is extremely simulationist.

"Gunslinger would be the only thing that comes close, but even then you can see that the design is much more streamlined, focused and manageable. Even though it is, by most standards, still balls-ass weird and unlike anything else ever made."

While I am probably overstating the obvious, Gunslinger is +another+ Hamblen title that really went off in a different direction from the norm (in a great way!). I wasn't sure if you brought up Gunslinger because it was another Hamblen, or whether you brought it up strictly to make your point, Michael (or both).

Great article. This combat system is genius, though the overall game is just too complex to be enjoyed without it being a lifestyle game.

Original combat systems are rare, and most of them suck. D&D's comes off particularly bad in contrast to MR's; the "goblin horde" situation noted by Gary is impossible in D&D, but is effortless (yes, elegant) in MR.

Mage Knight's is pretty good, as it also bakes in fatigue/wounds just by using hand-size and "dead" slots. But it misses something in character differentiation. Really shocking that after 40 years, MR's system hasn't really been appropriated elsewhere, let alone improved.