Ah, you have the 1st edition rules! The 2nd edition got rid of that. There’s a fan-made 3rd edition (which is the 284 page one). It’s… very thorough. I’m not sure it’s possible to learn the game by reading the rules; you kind of have to be taught.
I really really hope Christien said, “nice,” Magic Realm is a great catch. One I haven’t managed yet. That rule staging is something that really bugs me too. I’ve seen that in a few of Vlaada Chavatil games, notably in Through the Ages I just wanted the full rules of that game. Maybe that’s what’s killing Mage Knight for you.
Full disclosure I think Mage Knight is ok, And, It’s on the good side of ok. I don’t understand the super devoted fans but I admire what it’s got going on but I would totally trade my copy in for a copy of Magic Realm even if that particular game is from the time before good games. Magic Realm has almost the same fascination that Gunslinger does for me.
Tom Mc
Glad it arrived safely! I like to think the stern Gandalf-y looking guy on the box cover is trying to parse the combat rules.
@tomchick , you have probably already scouted BGG, but if not go here:
Ignore the rules in the box and grab the latest edition on BGG (3.1 - in either the vanilla version or reformatted deluxe version), along with The MR Tutorial Project, The Least You Need to Need to Know to Play Magic Realm and Magic Realm in Plain English.
The tutorial project is freaking amazing - 277 pages of illustrated play-throughs starting with the basics and escalating through the gamut of the ruleset.
There is also Magic Realm Light 30, a pretty amazing one page, self-contained, streamlined, solitaire variant designed with just enough rules to help players get the gist of game flow and provide a taste of the full game, but without the 300 page learning curve.
Now we’re talking! Seriously, I don’t know how ruleboo-- tomes are remotely appealing.
Guh, now I have to go to Tom’s and play this game.
I like Magic Realm, enough to have built muy own copy a decade or so back- sadly, a year or two before Karim’s redesign, though I did use the ‘other’ redesigned chits that had more info on them. I got it to the table a few times, and even though I thought I’d done a good job with figuring out the rules beforehand, it was inevitably a train wreck.
Good luck, Tom. Though @sharaleo’s links above look like they’ll make things easier- I know I have the 3.0 rules, and the Plain English, but the other stuff wasn’t around back then, though Quests of Magic Realm was. If you get into the game, you should definitely look that up.
I agree that the “staged” rules are a terrible idea. However, it’s also true that you don’t have to read and understand ALL the rules before you play. For example, you may well go an entire game without seeing a horse, so don’t bother with the horse rules until it comes up (assuming you have a group that is going to be ok with you figuring that out as you play; or better yet play a bunch of RealmSpeak until you understand everything). You can pretty easily play many times without worrying about magic at all (you may occasionally get the opportunity to cast a spell, even as a non-magic character, but it’s uncommon, and even more rare that you’d want to!).
As long as you know how to move, search, hide, and fight, you’re mostly good. Admittedly, fighting is pretty complicated. But this is for good reason – the combat system handles any number of characters, monsters, hired denizens and unhired denizens in any combination, with melee and ranged weapons, magic, armor, horses, etc. And anybody can be attacking anybody else, not just two sides attacking each other. It’s pretty brilliant actually.
I want to see Tom condense this one into a one page summary on the wall!
Yeah listen captain, my 13-year-old self and my jr high school friend Tom (no relation) absolutely loved that. Please remember that a lot of kids played these games back then, the hobby didn’t have three decades of all kinds of innovative mechanics for comparison, and letting us get into the game gradually was a boon. Just because middle-aged men like us are now demanding game rules perfection doesn’t mean that people in 1981 didn’t have good reasons for what they did.
Bruce, when has Tom ever needed a good reason to kvetch about something?
There is something about being able to bury yourself in a game that makes it appealing. Falcon 3.0, apparently Magic Realm and Dominion, all those AD&D manuals… lots of this from an era where there wasn’t as much ‘cheap’ entertainment (ie., a bizzilion games on Steam to play, etc.) so you chose a game/hobby and you lived and breathed it.
I dislike Mage Knight, a lot! Played it twice, bith times took 3+ hours, my character moved 6" total and most of the time my turn was determined by what I rolled on the crappy dice system. Super boring, barely any meaningful decisions, way too much downtime between very brief turns without any decisions to make.
Add another Kickstarter game to the trade pile: Battleborn Legacy. Just like WarQuest, the manual is terrible and the game is super clunky, lacking any elegance and is a pain to play. At least my next kickstarter arriving will be great: War of the Ring Anniversary Edition. Wheeeee!
Yeah that’s a fair point. I think my concern these days is attempting to bury myself in something that could turn out to not be for me. The proliferation of cheap entertainment certainly makes you acutely aware of time wasting.
I love playing Mage Knight solitaire! It’s a challenging brain-burner with many interesting decisions.
But yeah, the rules are presented terribly. And yes, I imagine the downtime would be crushing in multiplayer. I dunno; I never seriously thought about asking anyone else to play it with me. :)
But I really enjoy it as a solo game.
I don’t have any personal experience playing Mage Knight as a multiplayer experience, but I did ask someone about it recently. The downtime is one critical issue. The second though is very much what Tom was about with regards to cards in hand. During the downtime, a player can certainly plan out their moves, but by the time it is their turn, other players could well have defeated rampaging enemies, claimed keeps or burned monasteries, and the best that player could hope for is a whole lot of tapping cards to salvage what they can. Obviously, that isn’t a problem in solo play, in that case, it is more a variable puzzle in efficiency.
Not to mention messing up the dice pool by the taking the die you were counting on having! I think that’s one of the most significant obstacles to being able to plan when it’s not your turn. You don’t even know for sure what resources will be available, and those resources can be the foundation for what you’re going to do on your turn!
Did I mention that I hate Mage Knight?
-Tom
How is that not true of Archipelago?