What Makes Magic Realm Intriguing?

When I taught Magic Realm at HeavyCon, one of the players mentioned JeanMichelGrosjeu’s teaching videos, which I watched as part of my effort to cement the rules into my head. (He also has a nice set of player aids which I might print out if I ever get good access to a color printer; although I wish the amount of whitespace was reduced). Between this and dabbling in a game design, I’ve been trying to pin down what I find appealing so that I might be Lobachevsky the benefits into my creation.

In no particular order.

Entanglement allows “organic” (and discoverable) complexity

I’ve discussed at length my appreciation for entangled systems; but I should comment that entanglement might reduce complexity. (At least rules complexity). Despite all those rules (those videos are ~7-8 hours in total!), much of Magic Realm’s depth comes from its simplicity. There’s no rule that says that the White Knight can kill a dragon and the Black Knight can’t; it derives organically from chit numbers and differences between the characters.

There are no rules for sneak attacks; it flows out of the combat sequence of play. Similarly for fleeing caves for extra actions, etc. The rule complexity exists, but that means that the play complexity is discoverable by the players, not written. CCGs are popular because the rules are just one small aspect of play; investigating/discovering all the interactions between the cards is a big part of the draw.

Each character only has two “new rules.” Many are simple (“Roll One die instead of two when …” or “Get a -1 roll modifier when…”). Similarly, in Race for the Galaxy the Homeworlds generate differences with a simple symbol or two. New Sparta’s +2 military vs Alpha Centauri’s mineral discount (and being a windfall). Mage Knight also differentiates characters via “upgrading” two of their starting cards (but also by the skills you gain when levelling up).

(Note to self — play more Race).

But these don’t feel the same. The Swordsman’s Clever advantage can’t be easily derived to the “+1” or a symbol. It is easy to explain. (“The swordsman does not take his turn at a random order, but can pick his moment.”). Still, it clearly makes a simple (but dee) modification of the base movement system (“written orders, then resolve in random player order”) and allows for the depth to appear … not quite organically, but with a sentence that all players can easily understand.

Even with no “unique” rules the Realm’s monsters feel different just with the few numbers on each side of the chit, and whether they arrive individually, or in packs. The Octopus’s L4/2 strikes fear (into those that know). Imagine what could be achieved if you added a one sentence rule to some new variant monsters. “The Snape hides when prowling. Snapes do not block, but will attack characters in their clearing normally. Snapes only become unhidden after they attack.¹” Voila — a monster that can ambush a character (instead of vice versa), and I’m sure that there are simpler variants that could have a deeper impact.

Fog Banks of War

Magic Realm presents fog of war, but not in the normal ways. The map is built (unlike 4x games or Mage Knight), but you don’t know which monsters are exactly where. But you can rely on Woods having one chit and the Caves and Mountains having two chits …. excepting that one cave that is actually the Lost City that gets five more chits (and one mountain has the Lost Castle ….). There is a Dragon on that clearing and you can run across the hex in safety, unless some other player moves onto the hex first and the dragon is prowling at which point, oops.

That fact — the board state may change between when you plan your move and when you execute it — is probably the TL;DR of Magic Realm’s popularity. I’ve played dozens of “buy and sell stock” games — good and bad — but the most intriguing might be Dirk Henn’s Spekulation, because you only trade at random times. Mostr games have “Everyone trades as much as they want, and then the stock prices change and then everyone trades as much as they want.” (Even most 18xx follows that pattern, although I did just play 1880, which does not). Spekulation sees players groaning as the stock they bought rises up …. and then collapse before they unload it.

When taking control theory I learned how difficult it was handling systems which have a time lag. (The real world example is almost always thermostats). Magic Realm has lag. The board doesn’t act like a modern map with GPS. It’s a sixteenth century map with “Here be Dragons?” scrawled quizzically in the margin; and you can only wish you actually knew where the dragons be. Or — more specifically — where they will be during your turn.

(I am reminded of a civil war game series I haven’t played where you write out orders to your underlings and they implement them faithfully … but the orders might get delayed. I’ve never played it, but honestly in most of the direct conflict games you have a near omniscient view of the battlefield, and then the game makes LOS rules or die rolls or whatnot to resolve. This also strikes me as a brilliant idea to bottle angst; to be drunk by players and turned into sweet tears).

How many games have a “Roll and see if you succeed or fail?” Many of them. When you pick your action, resolve it, then pick the next one you get soldiers that put just enough effort into killing the enemy. But in the real world soldiers fire into the already dead …. “just to be sure.”

Compare that with Hide rolls of Magic Realm and of characters spending days to do an action that could be done in a single day … if everything works out.

All of which means that Magic Realm has fog of war, but in novel ways. Layers upon Layers of (known) unknowns. (For unknown unknowns you really need computer moderators).

Levels within Levels

So, The Realm‘s map doesn’t represent “Ground truth.” Part of it (mentioned above) is the delay between planning and execution. But a surprising amount is hidden. The “Look, the entire world is known” layout? A sham. The board is prebuilt and follows the rules, but ….

• Some chits have chits “inside them”
• Even knowing the chits you don’t know which monsters are prowling.
• Some treasures have treasures inside them (literally the “Treasures within treasures” section)
• The location of the dwellings isn’t revealed until after you’ve picked your character and goals
• Some dwellings can contain natives that show up … and then some native groups may have quests or visitors
• Players may enchant the board, which changes its layout! (“That Campfire? Well, it was due north yesterday….”)
• Those natives that you trade with may have a treasure that causes a game state change when it is revealed (Cloven Hoof, etc).

So, another dash of secret sauce appears to be “levels within levels.” The map isn’t 3D, but it isn’t quite 2D (and the time element is another dimension). You can see the arrangement of all eighty clearings, but somewhere there’s a campfire, and a castle, and a city. And apart from the layout of the board, the layout of the items in it may also affect the world. (Oops, you crossed paths with the Flowers of Rest, so end your turn and awake in the evening….)

99% is More Awesome than Certainty

Magic Realm is a dangerous game to say “Never,” when explaining rules.

Apart from uncertainty caused by the lag (and the map’s hidden levels) there are plenty of edge cases. Monsters never leave their own hex? Almost always true. They can be controlled and walked away. They can be caught in a storm. Their summoning chits can be messed with. The Magician can’t enchant tiles? True, unless he learns a chit-altering spell. Things I’ve seen (like the “Octopus Surprise,” when an inert permanent spell unexpectedly energizes due to an unexpected magic source) are probably pretty common, because I’ve only played ~20 games.

After my teaching game, one player looked through the spell list and said that maybe 2/3rds of the spells looked useless. That seems somewhat true — you want to grab Fiery Blast if you can cast it. But those spells can — in the right circumstances — be amazingly awesome. Our game of Dune had the equivalent of the Ask Demon spell (“Ask another player a question with a yes/no/number answer, that must be answered truthfully.”) Would I select the Ask Demon spell? No, it’s hugely conditional. You need a good question, and a demon with the ability to take the time to cast the spell instead of — you know — killing said demon (the spell does not keep the demon from attacking).

But some game the Witch or Witch King is going to discover this spell, find the demon, and have a killer question. It may take hundreds or thousands of games, but it will (and likely has) happened. How many games design interactions that may only happen once out of a hundred hours? A thousand? (And not just “Oh, that was a one-in-X good/bad luck” but a truly novel interaction).

Looking through the list myself, I wonder what realities I have not yet even dreamed of.

And that’s the point. I play for the next game; and while any game has something new. I am reminded of Agadmator’s chess channel, where each video includes the phrase “and here at move 10 we have a completely new game.” Of course a new game in chess is still chess, but there is always the hope of the unseen new brilliancy.

I haven’t played Mage Knight in years, because after 400+ games (so probably 500-600+ hours) I’m not really surprised by it. That’s still a great amount of time. The allure of Magic Realm is not just that the exploration is ahead of me, its that I don’t even have a good handle on how I’ll be surprised. Delicious.

1. You need that last line due to the sequence of play ↩︎