Great video! There’s definitely a meta strategy around magic. It’s not so easy as the fighter classes. Once you get it and/or get a few key items, you become OP as heck! It just blows my mind the amount of design that went into this game! Mind blowing stuff with the DNA of coding …well before coding if you factor that Richard prob took years to design this!
Excellent video series! I'm on number 3 tonight! I had my beady eye on this game when it first came out, but for whatever reason, I never bought it. Your play throughs have really sold the game to me, so I just managed to get hold of a good condition first edition game and can't wait to get it to the table. btw if you like fantasy boardgames, GDW did make one a long time ago called Valley of the Four Winds. BGG doesn't give it a great score - but I found it to be superb. One of my most played games (along with SL and Panzer Blitz) as I was growing up :)
Magic Realm was before computer games, before table-top fantasy roleplaying games and before adventure gamebooks! Learning and playing MR provides a unique insight into how computer programs works, how computer adventure games works in particular, what a roleplaying game is and how creating and unfolding your character in an adventure of your own can be so rewarding. Fantastic, just for the historical insights alone. A rare glimpse into the machine room of how modern gaming came to be. Now computers do all the dice rolling, table checking and chit activations. Graphics have improved. But the game play is all the same, though in most cases of modern gaming you are left with less options and choices.
No. It was not before tabletop rpgs. Not even computer games (though before most of the well known fantasy ones -but adventure came out in '76, still well after D&D).
Hi. I meant in general terms. None of what I mentioned had caught on like the craze in the 80's onwards. Yeah I checked the years and dates, and sure MR wasn't the only (nor first) thing around. I knew D&D was earlier, but the set-up and game mechanics of MR works like a computer-program. You can even play it on your own. Not like D&D in that respect. I think MR gives you an incredible insight, just from the learning process of trying to play it. Actuallly just spent my night playing the RealmSpeak app solitaire. I love how this shows me new aspects of the game I have never considered when playing it in a regular manner. Because RealmSpeak does all the set-up, die rolling and background stuff automatically so you can focus on playing your character and investigating ideas and new strategies. Still the front-end is just like the real game, so you can relate every move to that. Amazing.
Thanks, I got this game in the early eighties I think and would select the most interesting characters and play against myself on a table in a boat on an Amsterdam canal. There were game clubs in those days and sometimes I would play Diplomacy with a group of about 28 other players. Now I just got an app on my Samsung phone that has a partial recreation of Magic Realm. Life mostly had to win though, these games take too long. Thanks for posting this. I would like to see how the whole thing played out if you continued and posted the rest of the game till one character wins. And your analysis of why this came about, most likely luck I suppose. Yes, I think it is mostly the joy of living in this fantasy world. It helps if you are a bit autistic or depressed and need to flee in a world of imagination.
@@calandale Thank you for the quick reply! Because it is now past midnight in Amsterdam I had to go over it a bit quickly but your comments and criticism of the game is most helpful. Originally I played it before I got hooked up but now I have two sons, one grandson of 3, a wife in Ireland (I'm flying out to Dublin on Tuesday) and a mother of 97 that I'm trying to take care of, so my days of being blue are mostly over. And my time to play long games. So your analysis of these strategies of the elf, against the wizard, of a heavy character like the dwarf with cave knowledge (the pilgrim I always thought a bit dull, the witch king fascinating if difficult to play) and of the game itself save me to have to read up and try to replay the game.
Amazon turn 2 @~29:50. Moved once into a woods space and then a second move into the cliffs. Would she have needed 2 move actions to get to that mountain space in the Cliffs? She did M-M-S-S-S . I thought she would need M-M-M to get where she...got. Looks like everyone is moving on 1 M through the mountains actually. I have not actually played the game.. just building a set and trying to learn the rules. I appreciate these videos being available. Thank you.
Very interesting play-through, thanks for putting it up. I played the game heavily when it first came out, so my experience is with the 1st edition rules, too. Did you by any chance ever read the issue of the "General" that featured Magic Realm? (Nov-Dec 79) Richard Hamblen had an article with additional optional rules in that issue, including rules for the Lost City and Lost Castle to trigger monsters like sound counters; perhaps that's what you're remembering. Richard also had errata in that issue, including changing the Missile Table so that a 6 resulted a THREE level decrease in effectiveness. That is a major hit to several spells and all the missile weapons, so I never did quite agree with that one. Still the extensive coverage of the game in that issue was what inspired me to purchase Magic Realm a few months later. (Yes, I still have every General I ever received.) I had my own interpretations of the rules, too. I also left the Warning and Sound Counters flipped up, because I figured, "Why not?" If you were playing against live opponents, you'd write them down anyway, if you couldn't remember them. My personal style was that I always revealed counters by hiding, them moving into the tile and revealing them at the end of the turn. I just preferred a guaranteed look of 1 tile's counters per day, rather than rolling on the Search and Peer tables. Thanks again for this series.
My one year General subscription ran out before that. Couldn't convince myself that something without a game in it was worthwhile (plus I wasn't that much into AH - more SPI). It seemed an obvious assumption to make those a noise counter, given the set-up sheet though. Nice to know he made that an option. Maybe it was the original intent, but it was softened. I don't believe the counters get turned up if you're hidden. If they do, that's certainly more reasonable than wasting search attempts.
***** Well, you made me dig out my 1st Edition rules. :-) -- Rule 32.3 (Fourth Encounter) says :Whenever a character ends his turn in a tile, all of the inverted counters in that tile are turned face up." However, the 2nd Edition Rule (which I own but never got around to trying) changed that. Rule 5.2/1.a does qualify that with "unhidden character". Well, that would change my tactics. Looks like we reversed each other in our magazine subscriptions. I subscribed to Strategy and Tactics for 1 year, but decided I couldn't afford both it and the General. I had a big pile of Avalon Hill games, while the only games I really liked from S&T that year were "Siege of Constantinople" and "The Crusades" so I let S&T expire, and kept the General.
I must have intuited what the rules intended rather than following them strictly. I came to S&T at a very good time, IMO. They were getting very innovative. Probably the things that interested me the least was Operation Grenade, but even that was a neat idea. Only ended up with two years worth of subscription though.
Magic transforming spells are by no means useless. They greatly enhance a magic practitioner's magical capability strategically in various situations, thereby increasing a character's versatility for adventuring. Combat magic is not the "best" spells to have for a character, unless a player is optimizing to create the "winning" strategy to easily achieve the victory conditions.
The ghosts are always prowling and would block the Wizard and potentially the Pilgrim, by my reckoning. Still watching but it's starting the 2nd turn. Edit: as you say, you played it the way want so my comment probably not in character :D
There were a couple of situations were you were using the Peer action for a tile you were on instead of an adjacent tile. What is the advantage of looking at the chits when they will flip at the end of your turn anyways? I understand why you would look at an adjacent tile. I only ask as a learning question not to criticize gameplay.
Great video!
There’s definitely a meta strategy around magic. It’s not so easy as the fighter classes.
Once you get it and/or get a few key items, you become OP as heck!
It just blows my mind the amount of design that went into this game! Mind blowing stuff with the DNA of coding …well before coding if you factor that Richard prob took years to design this!
Excellent video series! I'm on number 3 tonight! I had my beady eye on this game when it first came out, but for whatever reason, I never bought it. Your play throughs have really sold the game to me, so I just managed to get hold of a good condition first edition game and can't wait to get it to the table. btw if you like fantasy boardgames, GDW did make one a long time ago called Valley of the Four Winds. BGG doesn't give it a great score - but I found it to be superb. One of my most played games (along with SL and Panzer Blitz) as I was growing up :)
Magic Realm was before computer games, before table-top fantasy roleplaying games and before adventure gamebooks!
Learning and playing MR provides a unique insight into how computer programs works, how computer adventure games works in particular, what a roleplaying game is and how creating and unfolding your character in an adventure of your own can be so rewarding. Fantastic, just for the historical insights alone. A rare glimpse into the machine room of how modern gaming came to be.
Now computers do all the dice rolling, table checking and chit activations. Graphics have improved. But the game play is all the same, though in most cases of modern gaming you are left with less options and choices.
No. It was not before tabletop rpgs. Not even computer games (though before most of the well known fantasy ones -but adventure came out in '76, still well after D&D).
Hi. I meant in general terms. None of what I mentioned had caught on like the craze in the 80's onwards.
Yeah I checked the years and dates, and sure MR wasn't the only (nor first) thing around. I knew D&D was earlier, but the set-up and game mechanics of MR works like a computer-program. You can even play it on your own. Not like D&D in that respect. I think MR gives you an incredible insight, just from the learning process of trying to play it.
Actuallly just spent my night playing the RealmSpeak app solitaire. I love how this shows me new aspects of the game I have never considered when playing it in a regular manner. Because RealmSpeak does all the set-up, die rolling and background stuff automatically so you can focus on playing your character and investigating ideas and new strategies. Still the front-end is just like the real game, so you can relate every move to that. Amazing.
Thanks, I got this game in the early eighties I think and would select the most interesting characters and play against myself on a table in a boat on an Amsterdam canal. There were game clubs in those days and sometimes I would play Diplomacy with a group of about 28 other players. Now I just got an app on my Samsung phone that has a partial recreation of Magic Realm. Life mostly had to win though, these games take too long. Thanks for posting this. I would like to see how the whole thing played out if you continued and posted the rest of the game till one character wins. And your analysis of why this came about, most likely luck I suppose. Yes, I think it is mostly the joy of living in this fantasy world. It helps if you are a bit autistic or depressed and need to flee in a world of imagination.
The whole playthrough is available here: thegamebox.byethost15.com/smf/index.php?topic=1485.0
@@calandale Thank you for the quick reply! Because it is now past midnight in Amsterdam I had to go over it a bit quickly but your comments and criticism of the game is most helpful. Originally I played it before I got hooked up but now I have two sons, one grandson of 3, a wife in Ireland (I'm flying out to Dublin on Tuesday) and a mother of 97 that I'm trying to take care of, so my days of being blue are mostly over. And my time to play long games. So your analysis of these strategies of the elf, against the wizard, of a heavy character like the dwarf with cave knowledge (the pilgrim I always thought a bit dull, the witch king fascinating if difficult to play) and of the game itself save me to have to read up and try to replay the game.
What was the name of the app that recreated Magic Realm?
The name of the app is "Portable Realm"
@@jack_Vance
I don't see it in the Google Play store. Where did you find it?
Amazon turn 2 @~29:50. Moved once into a woods space and then a second move into the cliffs. Would she have needed 2 move actions to get to that mountain space in the Cliffs? She did M-M-S-S-S . I thought she would need M-M-M to get where she...got.
Looks like everyone is moving on 1 M through the mountains actually. I have not actually played the game.. just building a set and trying to learn the rules.
I appreciate these videos being available. Thank you.
I think you're right.
Very interesting play-through, thanks for putting it up.
I played the game heavily when it first came out, so my experience is with the 1st edition rules, too.
Did you by any chance ever read the issue of the "General" that featured Magic Realm? (Nov-Dec 79) Richard Hamblen had an article with additional optional rules in that issue, including rules for the Lost City and Lost Castle to trigger monsters like sound counters; perhaps that's what you're remembering.
Richard also had errata in that issue, including changing the Missile Table so that a 6 resulted a THREE level decrease in effectiveness. That is a major hit to several spells and all the missile weapons, so I never did quite agree with that one.
Still the extensive coverage of the game in that issue was what inspired me to purchase Magic Realm a few months later.
(Yes, I still have every General I ever received.)
I had my own interpretations of the rules, too. I also left the Warning and Sound Counters flipped up, because I figured, "Why not?" If you were playing against live opponents, you'd write them down anyway, if you couldn't remember them.
My personal style was that I always revealed counters by hiding, them moving into the tile and revealing them at the end of the turn. I just preferred a guaranteed look of 1 tile's counters per day, rather than rolling on the Search and Peer tables.
Thanks again for this series.
My one year General subscription ran out before that. Couldn't convince myself that something without a game in it was worthwhile (plus I wasn't that much into AH - more SPI).
It seemed an obvious assumption to make those a noise counter, given the set-up sheet though. Nice to know he made that an option. Maybe it was the original intent, but it was softened.
I don't believe the counters get turned up if you're hidden. If they do, that's certainly more reasonable than wasting search attempts.
*****
Well, you made me dig out my 1st Edition rules. :-)
-- Rule 32.3 (Fourth Encounter) says :Whenever a character ends his turn in a tile, all of the inverted counters in that tile are turned face up."
However, the 2nd Edition Rule (which I own but never got around to trying) changed that. Rule 5.2/1.a does qualify that with "unhidden character". Well, that would change my tactics.
Looks like we reversed each other in our magazine subscriptions. I subscribed to Strategy and Tactics for 1 year, but decided I couldn't afford both it and the General. I had a big pile of Avalon Hill games, while the only games I really liked from S&T that year were "Siege of Constantinople" and "The Crusades" so I let S&T expire, and kept the General.
I must have intuited what the rules intended rather than following them strictly.
I came to S&T at a very good time, IMO. They were getting very innovative.
Probably the things that interested me the least was Operation Grenade,
but even that was a neat idea. Only ended up with two years worth of subscription though.
i've played this game before with the shapeshifter quest it was pretty fun flying around as a dragon
Magic transforming spells are by no means useless. They greatly enhance a magic practitioner's magical capability strategically in various situations, thereby increasing a character's versatility for adventuring. Combat magic is not the "best" spells to have for a character, unless a player is optimizing to create the "winning" strategy to easily achieve the victory conditions.
The ghosts are always prowling and would block the Wizard and potentially the Pilgrim, by my reckoning. Still watching but it's starting the 2nd turn.
Edit: as you say, you played it the way want so my comment probably not in character :D
There were a couple of situations were you were using the Peer action for a tile you were on instead of an adjacent tile. What is the advantage of looking at the chits when they will flip at the end of your turn anyways? I understand why you would look at an adjacent tile. I only ask as a learning question not to criticize gameplay.
There's a glimpse result on the peer table, which when followed by one of the other search tables gives a better chance of finding locations, IIRC.