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Magic Realm is Avalon Hill's Fantasy Adventure Game. Complexity Rating - 9; Playing time - one hour and up; number of players - 1 to 16.
Basically, it is like a role-playing game except there is no game master. Each player takes one (or more) of the 16 available characters (no rolling them up) and adventurers around "a land lost in the wilds at the end of the world where a once-fabulous civilization stood." There are about 150 different treasures, lots of monsters, several native (human) groups and the other players to deal with. Players can use spells, armor, weapons, horses and treasures as well as hire some of the natives to help them.
The board is composed of twenty tiles which can combine in a seemingly infinite number of ways. The monsters and treasures are placed randomly, but the players can count on certain trends (example: the wolves are always in the woods, it's just a matter of figuring out which woods).
The game has been around since 1979 and is still a favorite to many people. Unfortunately, it is out of print.
There are a lot of "dungeon masterless" fantasy games. Most of these games attempt to capture the feel of a role-playing game without someone having to sit back and create the "dungeon."
Magic Realm, when you use all the rules, is awesome in scope. The different characters that the players can use are very different -- they don't simply have different "stats." The Swordsman, Amazon and Black Knight, for example, are all warriors, as are the Berserker, Dwarf and Captain, but they all behave quite differently both in combat and in dealing with others.
More important, though, are the game's monsters and non-player characters, who appear and disappear from different parts of the board with an intriguing "semi-predictability." If I hang out at the Inn, the group known as the Company -- my allies, if I'm the Black Knight -- is sure to show up eventually. But, will the Rogues attack me first? How long can I linger near the altar, searching for the treasure that I'm sure is there, before the demon appears to make me into his dinner? I know that smoke means dragons, but if I hide, maybe they'll go away ...
The thing about Magic Realm that immediately gets attention is the board. The tiles are set up by the players, and can be arranged to yield a board that is brutal, friendly, or anywhere in between. Civilization can be clearly defined on one side with the "wilderness" on the other, or the world might be a nasty series of "outposts" with the dangerous unknown all around. Twenty hexagonal geomorphic tiles can yield who-knows-how-many combinations. Just two such tiles would give you 36, including rotations.
Magic Realm is much more complex than most fantasy board games. That's not good in and of itself, but this complexity has been used to give the game depth. By using a lot of rules, Magic Realm is able to contain more of the elements of role-playing games than most other board games. The players can hire non-player characters and send them off to do things. Certain non-player groups want some items more than others, and every player has his friends and enemies, not including each other. There are wars waiting to be started that can lead to violent, board-wide conflict. Any player can have agents and spies roaming the countryside, and powerful relics the others would kill to get. The players might work together, or they might start to but then "get ugly." Or, they may declare each other enemies from the outset.
There are many ways to win Magic Realm, because the players must choose their own victory conditions at the start of the game. You don't just need to have "the most gold" or to get to a certain spot. The game can be played "zen," where the players continually extend the game and use the victory conditions as personal goals, or with as much vicious competitiveness as any tournament game.
There are two editions to the rules. The first edition breaks the game up into seven "encounters," the second edition into four.
If you don't yet have the second edition of the rulebook, I highly recommend that you get it. It has several procedural changes to streamline the game, more examples, and better explanations of exceptions. It also has more and better information charts.
Probably the most important change in the second edition is that many first edition optional rules become required, and all-new optional rules are added. Most of these rules make the game both more complex and more sophisticated. Added are such things as: a more detailed selling system that has natives seeking out certain types of items; seasons and their accompanying nasty weather; a new combat table with random elements that allow for "desperation" play; and more.
Oh, by the way, the only difference between the first edition of the game and the second is the rules -- all other components are the same. Buy the new rules and you will be up to date.
With TAHGC out of business your choice are very limited. You can try to purchase another copy of the game that has the 2nd edition rules in it, or you can ask on the mailing list for some kind sole to send you a photo-copy. Several people are working on an on-line edition as well.
There have been several articles in The General about Magic Realm, I don't have a reference of them all; perhaps someone reading this can send me the missing information.
This first group of articles were published before the 2nd edition rules came out.
| Vol. | Issue No. | Name of article | Discription |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | 4 | Magical Mystery Tour | A sample turn explaining combat, spells, etc |
| 16 | 4 | The Deadly Realm | Makes monsters come out more |
| 16 | 4 | Seasons | Special weather rules |
| 16 | 4 | Solitaire Rules | Rules for solitaire play |
| 16 | 4 | Combining Realms | Combining multiple boards into one game |
| 16 | 4 | Development | Gives characters up to 11 levels |
| 16 | 4 | Errata | Rule fixes for 1st edition |
| 16 | 4 | Questions & Answers | Q&A for 1st edition |
| 17 | 1 | Merlin's Used Horse Lot? | Enchanting dwellings |
| 17 | 5 | My Son, the Berserker | Analysis of Berserker character |
| 20 | 2 | What am I bid for... | Varying prices |
| 21 | 5 | Which Way the Witch King? | Analysis of Witch King character |
| 21 | 5 | The Question Box | Q&A for 1st edition. |
This group of articles were published after the 2nd edition rules came out.
| Vol. | Issue No. | Name of article | Discription |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | 6 | A Little Help From Friends | Teaming up to win |
| 24 | 5 | Monster Mash | Which characters can kill which monsters. |
| 24 | 5 | The Question Box | Q&A for 2nd edition. |
| 26 | 4 | The Legendary, Lost Index | Index and table of contents to 2nd ed. rules |
| ? | ? | Bashing the Bashkars | Was this published? |
| To find... | Table | Chance per roll |
|---|---|---|
| Hidden enemies? | Peer | 36% |
| Secret Paths? | Peer | 25% |
| Secret Passages? | Locate | 25% |
| Clues? | Peer | 36% |
| Discover chits? | Locate | 22% |
By the way, this information is only good with the second edition rules and does not include the magic sight table.
There are a total of 17 great treasures in the game, 10 large and 7 small. This means that about 3.27 of the great treasures will be in the possession of the natives/Scholar. The rest will be in the site chits. If you plan on staying away from monsters, go really light on this requirement. The best places to look are the hoard, pool and vault. They account for over 1/3 of the great treasures.
| 3.3 | with the natives/Scholar | 19% |
| 13.7 | at the treasure locations | 81% |
As a point of interest, the average great treasure has a notoriety value of 6.59 and a fame value of -8.46 (yes, that's negative.) [from Elliot Wilen: Of note, though, is that the great treasures can basically be divided into "creepy" items (large negative fame) and "good" times (no fame value, but are worth fame when sold to the right person.) There are about the same number of each. So at first sight you might want to consider FAME and GREAT TREASURES to be contradictory goals, but it's not too bad to take both.]
Seven of the small treasures contain spells (22 spells total). Six of the large treasures contain spells (for only 6 spells total). Several of the treasure locations and visitors also have spells; see page 9 of the 2nd edition rulebook for a chart showing exactly where they are.
This means that about 3.27 of the spell books & artifacts will be with the natives/Scholar, but since most of the spells are contained in the (small) books, they account for about 10.3 of the spells in active play -- add to this the 6 spells that the other visitors have and you get 16.3. The statue, pool, shrine and cairns combined account for over 1/3 of the spells available.
| 16.3 | spells with natives/visitors | 40% |
| 24.7 | spells at the treasure locations | 60% |
| Spell Type -> | I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII |
| with natives/visitors | 35% | 39% | 39% | 48% | 39% | 48% | 19% | 48% |
| at treasure locations | 65% | 61% | 61% | 52% | 61% | 52% | 81% | 52% |
Fame can be had by killing monsters. All of the fame can be found in the mountain* and cave tiles (except for the two vipers which are in one of the woods tiles.) *note: mountain includes Deep Woods.
The average treasure card has a fame value of -1.6. Some of the treasures have conditional fame -- you must sell the treasure to its rightful owner to get the fame. The average for this kind of fame is 2.6.
Make the world safer for human beings and you will become famous!
Notoriety can be had by killing. It doesn't matter what you kill, just as long as it/him/her dies by your hand (or by the hand of one of your flunkies.) If you are looking for a lot of notoriety, then it would be a good idea to hire some help. The mission chits are also a great help to the notoriety seeker!
Also, this is a good time to note that many of the "evil" treasures have high notoriety and the "good" treasures have negative notoriety. Your search for notoriety will define your character's alignment and other players will use it as a gauge of your trustworthiness. Characters which need/have high notoriety scores will tend to hunt other players down near the end of the game, making them seem even more evil!
Most of the treasures have value, but buying them doesn't get you anywhere, so you will want to kill for them (you can't just steal them). If you don't want to (or can't) kill and you are good at hiding, then you can be the scavenger. Shadow other characters and wait until they die, then pick up all of their belongings!
Another obvious tactic that I almost forgot about-- barter! Many of the characters have special knowledge or abilities that they can sell to others. For example, the Wizard can sell the location of a path or passage, while the Woods Girl can escort others through the woods, providing protection.
A third tactic that works sometimes is extortion. A character like the Swordsman can bug the hell out of someone like the White Knight making the game all but unwinnable. Under these conditions, the White Knight might be willing to pay the Swordsman off so he will go bug someone else...
Avalon Hill has published some Q&A for the game. From what I've seen of it though, all the answers published so far can be found in the Second Edition rulebook.
Below are some questions who's answers aren't in the rulebook: (Warning, I've had no official ruling on these questions. The answers below are simply my take on the subject after examining the relevant rules and discussing the subject on the Magic Realm Mailing List. They are questions that need to be answered however and you may want to make your own house rules for them.)
The Phantasm's remote SPELL activities are actually regular SPELL activities done by the Phantasm using the character's MAGIC chits (The Phantasm can also use the color in the characters clearing to power his SPELL activities.) In the Phantasm's first SPELL activity it can do nothing. When the character's turn comes up, he uses his own SPELL activities and can do nothing on his first SPELL activity also.
Look at the web page Magic and how to use it. This overview should be enough to help the rules make sense. I just make general comments about the exact procedures outlined in the rules.
Look at the web page Combat examples. There are currently two examples in it. Would you like to add an example of your own? If so, mail it to me!
This is a game where there can be more than one winner, just like in a role-playing game. Some of the characters are designed to work well as a team and this should be taken into account when choosing a character.
Some were published in The General a long time ago for the first edition rules; see above.
The only house rule that we use (that isn't in the second edition rulebook already) is a two-handed weapons rule. We have designated some of the weapons as two-handed -- when a character has one of these active, (s)he may not also have a shield active. These weapons are: medium bow, light bow, crossbow, staff, great sword and great axe.
Some players are playing around with the victory multipliers to make the game easer for the non-fighters to win. Personally, I don't think it's necessary if you study the game.
By all means, e-mail me or e-mail your question to the mailing list. We will be happy to help you figure out the rules with examples of play and other aids.
I enjoy this game very much and hope I can get you to play it more often!