Expanding the Realm

The designer of the awesome RealmSpeak, an application that allows you to play Magic Realm on your computer, has made the code open source. You can get it here.

This means that even though the last thing I need is another side project, I am going to be trying my hand at expanding Magic Realm. The first order of business will be to get myself used to the code and how it works, but then I will be creating an expansion to add a number of spells to the game.

Though I love how magic works in Magic Realm, I always thought that there weren't quite enough good options for spell casters. Certain spell casters could indeed be very effective, heck some of them are almost unkillable if played correctly, but their options were sparse and playing a spell caster generally means picking the one or two obvious choices for your character.

So, over the next few weeks I will be diving into the world of Java programming to see if we can expand the spell books of the Realm. If you have any suggestions about additions you might like to see in this venerable game, drop me a line... otherwise, wish me luck.

Can We Retire 'Fantasy Heartbreaker' Now?

A friend of mine recently called a game of his a "Fantasy Heartbreaker." Having lived through the stupid rpg internet arguments of the '90, my first thought was to gripe and groan. But, I held my tongue and imagined for a moment, that after 15+ years, maybe this term had taken on a new meaning. Perhaps, like Randal in Clerks 2, we were "taking it back."

As it turns out (much like Randal in Clerks 2) we're not taking it back. It is still sprinkled with condescension, a touch of derision and just a dash of wrongheaded agenda. It is still out there in posts and discussions. Indeed, the top article in a Google search is the Wikia definition:

A fantasy heartbreaker is, essentially, a Dungeons & Dragons knock-off. Ron Edwards coined the term to describe a species of games published in the RPG boom of the 1990s, long after their purported innovations could be considered original. The term usefully describes games which are mired in preconceptions arising from the D&D paradigm. A criticism of the term is that it implies dismissal of the idea you can make "D&D, but better," which might be a desirable goal for some designers.

After 15+ years, do I care anymore? Eh... obviously enough to spend 15 minutes internet ranting about it, so yeah, a little.

My issue with the term Fantasy Heartbreaker is the same issue I had the old days -- it denies one of the main joys of the hobby, which is that strong element of homebrew, do it yourself tweaking. So, it bothers me when I see someone post, "I had this game idea, but decided to scrap it because the world does not need another fantasy heartbreaker."

The only correct answer to that is "Hell yeah we need it!" Look... it's 2015. The top selling rpg of the past year was a D&D knock-off. The entire OSR movement is full of fantasy heartbreakers. Tell me exactly whose heart is being broken... by all of these games people are writing, playing, and enjoying? What used to be a crappy term has become a meaningless one. Maybe it's time to retire it?

Magic Realm Combat -- The Very Basics

This is the first part of a larger tutorial:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
Part 4

My story about my sons' misadventures with the Tremendous Demon sparked some lively Magic Realm discussion, and ultimately, led to a friend and I playing a couple of games. My buddy enjoys Magic Realm quite a bit, but admits he rarely plays the game without me because he doesn't quite understand combat or magic enough to play the game on his own. Even with the wonderful tool Realmspeak, he just isn't comfortable.

That fact, and a couple of comments led me to think a few tutorial posts might be a good idea. Now, I am by no means an expert player -- I die a lot. But hopefully, I will be able to add a little to your understanding of this awesome game.

The next few posts, we will be going over the combat rules, in increasing detail. If that works out, and I don't run out of steam, or totally confuse everyone, I will move on to spell casting. So, let's start with the basics of Magic Realm's amazing combat system.

One thing to remember -- Relax, it's not that bad. For as legendarily complex as MR is, ultimately, the combat system deals with the same core things that any rpg combat system does. Do you hit your target? How much damage do you do? How much damage can you take? The actual guts of the combat system are pretty simple and much of the difficulty comes from making the NPCs work, and from the various additions... like horses, spell casting, etc.

The Combat Sequence

The MR combat sequence has the following steps

• Luring
• Random Assignment
• Deploy
• Actions
• Assign Targets
• Position Attacks and Maneuvers
• Shift Monsters and Roll Tactics
• Resolve Attacks
• Wound/Fatigue
• Check for Combat End

For this first post, we are going to focus on the core of the combat system: Do you hit your target? How much damage do you do? How much damage can you take? To do that we are going to run through a simple battle --the Captain facing a lone axe goblin.

The first three phases of the combat sequence deal with which monsters attack which characters/hirelings. Because there is one unhidden character, facing a single monster, we know who is attacking whom, and so we can effectively ignore Luring, Random Assignment and Deployment for this battle. Every round, the goblin ends up on the Captain's combat sheet, attacking him. Similarly, every round, we will be attacking the goblin.

The Captain's 12 Combat Chits

Combat Chits -- Move and Fight

Every character's combat abilities are described by a set of 12 combat chits.

• Chits have a Type: FIGHT chits are used to attack, MOVE chits are used to defend. (MAGIC chits also exist, but that is for another time.) 
• Chits have a Weight: Chits are either Light, Medium, Heavy or Tremendous. The weight of a chit tells us what kinds of weapons and armor can be used in battle. If you have a medium weapon, you need a medium chit to use it. If you are wearing heavy armor, you can only play heavy or tremendous MOVE chits. The weight of a chit can also alter the damage of an attack. We'll discuss that later.
• Chits have a Speed: Chits have a speed from 1 (super fast) to 6 (really slow). The speed of the chits played in a given round can determine whether or not an attack hits, and the order in which they are resolved.
• Chits have Effort: Each chit has anywhere from 0 to 2 effort asterisks that tell us how tiring a specific chit is to play. A chit with no asterisks does not require effort. A chit with two asterisks is very tiring to play.

So, the Captain has medium move chits, which means he can wear medium armor. His speeds are between 3-5, which is average, but notice that his MOVE M3** has two asterisks. It is very tiring to play, and we'll usually try not to play it if possible. We have a mix of medium and heavy fight chits, and so, we can wield weapons that have a heavy weight. However, our FIGHT H chits are slow, and we start with a light weapon, so we will generally stick to the medium FIGHTs. These are similar to our MOVE chits, having speeds 3-5, but the fastest chit has two asterisks and tires us out.

Monsters Have "Chits" Too... Sort Of

Our goblin adversary has similar "stats" as well. Denizens of the realm have two sides representing different "tactics" they use in battle. Monsters start a battle light-side up and on that side, the goblin has a block that looks like this L4*. This means that the goblins FIGHT does Light damage, and attacks with a speed of 4. Monsters don't fatigue though... that star is a sharpness star, and it increases the damage of the goblin's attack (we'll talk about that later). The 3 on the opposite side of the counter without the letter, is the goblin's MOVE speed of 3.

If the goblin "changes tactics" during combat, he will turn dark-side up. If that happens, the goblin's attack becomes Medium (with a sharpness star), but his MOVE speed drops to 4. He hits harder, but is slower on defense.

Vulnerability

Both the Captain and the goblin have another important characteristic that isn't shown on any counter -- Vulnerability. Vulnerability is your toughness. It reflects how hard a hit you can take before you die. The Captain's vulnerability, listed on his character card, is Medium. A medium harm hit to the Captain will kill him.

Medium, Heavy and Tremendous

The goblin's vulnerability is also medium and we can tell this by the size of his counter. Monsters with small counters have Medium vulnerability. Monsters with the mid-sized counters are Heavy and monsters with the largest counters are Tremendous.

Weapons of War

The final thing I want to look at before getting to the actual battle is the weapon carried by the Captain. Weapons in Magic Realm have several characteristics.

• Weapons Have a Weight: A weapon has a weight (Negligible, Light, Medium, Heavy or Tremendous) that indicates how strong a FIGHT chit is required to play it. In addition, the weapon's weight determines how much damage it does when it hits.
• Weapons Have Sharpness: Some weapons have sharpness starts next to their weight. Just like the goblin, these stars will increase the damage done when the weapon hits. We'll discuss exactly how much later.
• Weapons Have a Speed: Some weapon chits have a number on them. These are speed numbers and work like FIGHT chits. 1 is really fast, 6 is really slow. If your weapon has a speed associated with it, then that number supersedes the speed on your FIGHT chit. This can be really important to remember in a fight.
• Weapons Have an Alerted Side and an Unalerted Side: All weapon chits have two sides. The white side with no asterisk is the UNALERTED side. The red side, with the asterisk, is the ALERTED side. This is important because most weapons have totally different (better) stats when they are alerted.
• Weapons Have a Length: Weapons have a length which, along with speed, helps determine who strikes first in a battle. The lengths of the weapons are printed in a chart in the rule book.

Now, let's look at the Captain's short sword -- one of the crappiest weapons in the game in my opinion. The short sword is a Light weapon with one sharpness star (which as we will see, means it does Medium harm). It's length is 3, making it one of the shortest weapons in the game, but it's meager reach is higher than that of many of the creatures of the realm. On it's alerted side, you can see that nothing changes. It is no better alerted than when unalerted.

Compare this to the mace, which is the weapon with which the infamous Black Knight starts the game. The mace does Medium damage, which is similar to the Light, but sharp short sword. The mace's length is 1, which is nearly the shortest in the game. Still higher than most creatures, but the short sword has the advantage. However, we can see that, when alerted, the mace's speed is 3, which is pretty fast. In fact, if you look at the Captain's chits, that 3 speed is as fast as the fastest FIGHT chit, the Captain can play -- his FIGHT M3**. It might not look like much now, but that is a huge advantage for the mace, and plays very heavily into the tactics used by a character that wields one.

Onward to Battle!

So, in a nameless clearing in the Magic Realm, a unarmored Captain faces a lone axe goblin. The Luring, Random Assignment, and Deploy steps are there to determine which denizens and NPCs attack which characters. For this first battle, we will mostly ignore those steps. The Captain isn't hidden, and so he lures the goblin to his sheet -- in other words, the goblin will be attacking the Captain every round. After I awkwardly throw all my counters on there for you to see, our sheet looks like this:

The Action Step

The action step is where we need to make our first decision. There are several things we can do on our action step, but as a fighter, the main options we need to consider are:

• Do we run?
• Do we alert our weapon?

Do We Run?

To run, we need to play a MOVE chit that has a speed less than the move speeds of all the enemies on our sheet. The goblin's move is 3 and our best MOVE chit is a MOVE M3**, so we cannot run even if we wanted to. If you refer back to the goblin's chit, you may note that its flip side has a move speed of 4 and we could flee if the goblin were to flip.

Do we even need to run? Not in this case. As we go further in the round, we will see that the Captain indeed does enough damage to kill the goblin, and that a lone goblin has no chance against our stalwart veteran.

Do We Alert?

To alert our weapon, we need to play a FIGHT chit that has a speed less than the move speeds of all the enemies on our sheet. Our fastest FIGHT is a FIGHT M3**, so we cannot alert our short sword. However, you might already realize that there is no reason to alert a short sword -- it has the same characteristics either way.

So, we can't run and we can't alert, so we will do nothing for our action step.

The Assign Targets Step

For this step, we place our Attention chit on our target. For this battle it is pretty simple since there is only one creature to fight. However, even if we were fighting a gaggle of goblins, we would still choose a single goblin to attack -- while they would all attack us each round.

The Position Step

For this step, we place the goblin in one of the three red boxes (just put him in the first box, because he might move in the Tactics step) and then place our MOVE and FIGHT chits. Our FIGHT chit, along with our weapon, goes into one of the Attack circles in the upper-right of the sheet. Our MOVE chit goes in one of the Maneuver squares at the bottom of the sheet.

Placing your MOVE and FIGHT chits might seem like voodoo magic, but there are some pretty simple things to consider... (though they are not necessarily in this order):

• Can I play a FIGHT chit to undercut the opponent's move speed?
• Can I play a MOVE chit to ensure I am not undercut by the opponent's fight speed?
• Who attacks first this round?
• Should I cover my MOVE in case my opponent intercepts me? (What happens if my opponent hits me?)
• Can I avoid fatigue this round?

Undercutting Your Opponent

There are two ways to hit your opponent in Magic Realm. The first way it to undercut him, by playing a FIGHT chit with a speed less than his move speed. If you do this, you automatically hit your opponent that round, regardless of how he moves in the Tactics step. If we can guarantee a hit, we often should... but that depends on other considerations that come later.

For now, it is enough to note that with his move speed of 3, we cannot undercut the goblin currently, even with our best FIGHT chit (M3**). Of course, if the goblin flips during the Tactics step, we could undercut with our FIGHT M3**, but there are some other things to consider, and as you will see, there is no need to undercut the axe goblin.

Not Getting Undercut

Of course with his L4* attack, the goblin can undercut us if we don't play a MOVE chit with a speed of 4 or better. Though it is sometimes ok to be undercut, it is often a bad thing, and in this case we want to avoid it. We will be playing one of our MOVE M4* chits to avoid being hit.

Who Attacks First?

This question is pretty important for this battle. Because it is the first round of combat, weapon length and then attack speed determines who attacks first. Our short sword has a length of 3. The axe goblin has a length of 2 (from the monster chart in the book). So, in the first round of battle, we attack first, which is a good thing.

In the second and subsequent rounds of battle, the importance is reversed. Attack speed determines who attacks first, but on attacks of equal speed, weapon length determines who has initiative. So, on later rounds, if we play a FIGHT with a speed of 5 or 6, the goblin goes first. If we play a FIGHT of 4 or better, we go first.

So... the nice thing is, because we cannot undercut the goblin, and this is the first combat round, we go first, no matter how slow our FIGHT chit is. We might as well play our slowest, heaviest, least fatiguing FIGHT chit. So, we will play our FIGHT H6... the question is where?

Intercepting Your Opponent

So far, we have determined that we are playing our MOVE M4* chit and our FIGHT H6 chit. The only question we have now is whether we will cover our move or not. This has to do with the second way to hit an enemy in Magic Realm, intercepting his maneuver. So, after you place your chits, and the Tactics step moves (and flips?) the enemies on your sheet, if your attack lines up with your target's red box (ex. you played Thrust and he is in Thrust and Charge), you intercept and hit him. Also, if your opponent's red box lines up with your maneuver (ex. he ends up in Duck and Smash and your maneuver is Duck), he intercepts you and hits you.

We are playing our chits to cover our move

Covering Your Move

Here's the thing, you can't control whether you will intercept your opponent. The red box your opponent ends up in is entirely random, so you have a 1/3 chance to intercept each round. What you can control is whether you will intercept him if he intercepts you. To do this, you play your FIGHT in the attack circle that corresponds with the maneuver in which you played your MOVE. Playing this way is called covering your move.

So, if I play my MOVE in the Charge box and my attack in the Thrust box, I have covered my move. If my targeted opponent ends up in the Thrust/Charge red box, he will intercept (and thus hit) me, but I will also intercept (and thus hit) him.

You generally want to cover your move if:

• Your target is a dangerous opponent and
• You will attack before your target this round and
• You can kill your target

You want to not cover your move if:

• Your target is dangerous and
• You will attack after your target or
• Your attack will not kill your target

We are going to play to cover our move. Let's play our FIGHT H6 in the Swing attack space and let's play our MOVE M4* in the Dodge maneuver space. Once we play our chits, it is time to move to the next step.

Shifting Monsters and Tactics

Now, we roll some dice to determine which maneuver box our opponent ends up in, and which side of his counter flips up. We roll a SINGLE die and compare it to the repositioning chart. In this case, we roll a 3 and we get "bottom right box unchanged", meaning we switch the top two boxes. Our goblin goes to the Dodge/Swing box and whoever was in the Dodge/Swing box (no one this time) goes into Charge/Thrust.

We then roll TWO dice and if either of them is a 6, our goblin "changes tactics" and that means we flip him and use the stats on his dark side. We roll a 4 and a 2, so our goblin does not flip and our sheet ends up looking like this:

Resolve Attacks

Now, we can resolve our attacks -- which because this is the first round of battle, we do so in order of weapon length. If you remember, our Captain's sword is length 3, which edges out the goblins length 2 attack, so our attack is resolved before the goblin's.

Our attack does not undercut the goblin, because our attack time of 6 is slower than the goblin's move of 3. However, because he moved into the Swing/Dodge box, we intercept and hit the goblin regardless of our relative speeds.

Harm

Our short sword does light damage. However, it is a melee weapon and thus, the strength of our FIGHT chit matters. We played a Heavy FIGHT, which is more than the Light chit required to wield the short sword. This overstrengths the weapon and increases the damage by one step. So, our Light sword now does Medium harm.

In addition, the sword has a single sharpness star. The harm done by an attack is increased by a level for each sharpness star. So, our damage is increased again from Medium to Heavy.

When our Heavy harm attack hits a Medium vulnerability goblin, the goblin is killed. Because it is killed before its attack is resolved, its attack is cancelled. This is a good thing, because as you can see, the goblin also intercepted our maneuver, which would have meant a Meduim hit (the goblin does L* damage) on the Captain... enough to kill him.

This is why we covered out move in this battle. The goblin could kill us, but could not undercut us. Thus, covering our move insured that if the goblin hit us, we would hit the goblin... knowing that our slightly longer weapon would insure we would vanquish the creature before he struck a killing blow.

Let's Up the Ante

So, after a whole bunch of explanation, we see that the Captain can easily handle a single goblin. Let's use what we know and see what happens to the Captain as he faces three goblins. This battle will be a tiny bit rougher, so we will give our hero his armor back... which gives us the chance to see how armor works too.

So, just like last battle, we will take all of the goblins on our sheet, and we won't be fleeing, or alerting a weapon, so we can skip to the Position step and our sheet looks like this:

Position Step

You might be asking why we spread the goblins out into three maneuver boxes. If you understand how attacks are resolved, you realize that spreading the enemies out means that one of them is bound to intercept and hit us, so it would seem like a bad idea. Short answer... the rules make us do this. We have to fill as many boxes as we can with enemies. So three bad guys means three attacks from three different directions. We are very likely going to get hit before we can defeat all of the goblins, which is why we gave the Captain his armor.

You can see we put the armor in the armor ovals. The breastplate and the helmet have to go in the ovals in which you see them. The shield can be placed in any of the three ovals to protect any of the maneuvers. We will use it to protect our Charge. Like last fight, we played a FIGHT H6 and a MOVE M4*, and targeted the first goblin, covering our Charge maneuver with a Thrust attack. Now, we will roll some dice to reposition the monsters and see if they flip.

Our reposition die is a 5 -- shift down and to the right. So, every goblin changes boxes, moving down and to the right. The guy already on the bottom gets shifted up to the Thrust/Charge box. 

After Repositioning

Now we roll for each goblin to see if they flip. For the goblin in box 1, we roll a 6/2 and he flips to his dark side. The goblin in box 2 gets a 5/3 and the guy in box 3 get a 6/6, so he flips. Our sheet now looks like this:

Goblins 1&3 Change Tactics

Now, we resolve attacks. It is round one, so our length 3 short sword is first, and as you can see, we don't undercut our target, and because he repositioned, we don't intercept him either. We miss. The good news is that because we miss, our weapon is alerted. The bad news is, that doesn't matter for the lame short sword.

Next, the goblin attacks are resolved. Because their weapons are the same length, and their attack times are all the same, all of their attacks happen at the same time and are resolved at the same time. For simplicity's sake, let's not just handle the attacks one at a time.

The goblins in boxes 2 and 3 are easy to handle. Their attack times of 4 are equal to our MOVE M4* speed, but that isn't good enough to undercut us. Checking their attack directions, you can see that they don't intercept our Charge move either. Both goblins 2 & 3 miss us this round... thankfully.

The goblin in box 1 on the other hand, intercepts our Charge and thus hits regardless of attack/maneuver speed. So how much harm does he do?

His attack is M4*, which is Heavy harm, which will kill the Captain... except that the Captain has his shield in the way. So, what happens when an attack hits armor?

• If the attack has sharpness stars, one of the stars is removed (if it has none, the harm is not reduced)
• If the resulting harm exceeds the weight, the armor is destroyed
• If the resulting harm equals the weight, the armor is damaged and flipped
• If the resulting harm is Medium or greater, the character is wounded

Let's resolve this Medium* attack hitting the shield.

• First, we remove a sharpness star, making the attack a Medium harm attack
• The Medium harm does NOT exceed the shield's Medium weight
• The Medium harm DOES equal the shield's Medium weight, so the shield is flipped to the damaged side
• The Medium attack wounds the Captain -- which is great considering that without armor, that blow kills him

A wound means we take a chit out of play. If all of our chits end up wounded, or fatigued, we die, but that is a long way off. So, we choose the MOVE M5 because we are unlikely to want to play it this fight, since doing so means being undercut and hit by three angry goblins.

Fatigue

I ignored fatigue last battle because it was not going to come up. We aren't going to fatigue this round either, but I mention it because it is bound to come up in future combat rounds.

In any given round, you are only allowed to play a total of two effort asterisks. This includes chits played to flee, to alert a weapon, and MOVE and FIGHT chits. Every chit you use is placed in the "Used this Round" box and at the end of the round, if you played two asterisks, you must fatigue one asterisk worth of chits.

Onto Round 2

Not a great start for the Captain. Our shield is damaged, we have a chit wounded, and still there are three goblins to deal with.

Round 2 Position Step

This is our round 2 positioning. You can see our weapon is alerted, and we are still attacking the goblin in box 1 and covering our Charge maneuver. You might also notice that we changed our FIGHT chit. We are now playing the FIGHT M4* instead of the H6. Why?

Remember that because this is round 2, attack speed determines whose attack is resolved first, followed by weapon length. We are covering our move, but if we want to kill our target before he wounds us again, we need to play an attack of at least speed 4.

Our repo die is a 4 which means no change -- all the goblins stay where they are. Now, we see who flips. We roll for each goblin and only box 2 flips with a 6/3. Our sheet looks like this:

Round 2 After Repositioning/Tactics Roll

Time to resolve attacks. Every attack on the board is a speed 4, but our weapon is still longer, so we resolve first. Our attack intercepts our target in box 1, so we hit him, overstrengthing our weapon for M* harm, which kills the goblin. His attack is cancelled and just like last round, the monsters in boxes 2 & 3 neither undercut, or intercept, so they miss.

Because our attack hit, we flip our weapon to its unalerted side.

No wounds this round, but we did play two effort asterisks and so we have to fatigue a chit. Because we played both a FIGHT and a MOVE with effort, we can choose to fatigue an asterisk from either category. I choose one of my FIGHT H5* chits and it goes out of play.

Round 3

Not so bad. We have one chit fatigued and another wounded. There are two goblins on our sheet, but they are both dark side up, which gives us an option we didn't have before. See, the dark side of the goblin counter shows a move speed of 4, which means we can play our MOVE M3** during the action step to flee the battle.

Nah... let's ride this one out and see what happens! Like last round, we are going to play a FIGHT M4* and a MOVE M4* and cover our maneuver. We are hoping to kill a second goblin before fatigue gets to us and before the goblins wound us too much to continue.

Round 3 Position Step

Ugh, the repo roll is a 6, meaning the monsters move up and to the left. That means goblin 2 moves to box 1 and my target evades my attack by shifting to box 3. Rolling to flip, I get the goblin now in box 1 flipping with a 6/6. My sheet looks like this:

I am hit again!

We resolve first, but miss our target (who also misses me). We flip our weapon red-side up. The goblin in box 1 intercepts and hits, but we have the shield in the way. Let's resolve the Light* attack hitting the shield.

• First, we remove a sharpness star, making the attack a Light harm attack
• The Light harm does NOT exceed the shield's Medium weight
• The Light harm does NOT equal the shield's Medium weight and thus the shield is unaffected
• The Light attack does NOT wound the Captain

In this case, the shield not only kept us from dying, it protected us from all harm and wasn't even damaged! But we played two asterisks and still have to fatigue. We choose the second FIGHT H5* and go to round 4.

Round 4

For round 4, let's change tactics a bit. We have one goblin dark-side up who has a move speed of 4. The other goblin has a move speed of 3, but if he hits armor, does no damage to us. We can undercut the dark-side goblin by playing our FIGHT M3**, and that will guarantee a hit, but what MOVE will we play in that case? We foolishly wounded our MOVE M5 previously and if we are playing a two asterisk attack, we need a no asterisk defense option.

Funny thing is, we can choose to not play a FIGHT or MOVE in a round if we don't want to. If we fail to play a FIGHT, we don't attack that round... not an option here. If we don't play a MOVE, we are automatically hit by every enemy on my sheet when it comes time to resolve their attacks. That sounds dumb, but think about it.

If we play FIGHT M3** on the goblin with a move speed of 4, we will resolve first (faster attack) and hit, killing that goblin before he hits back. The other goblin will auto-hit us, but since he is currently doing L* damage, his attack will harmlessly bounce off our armor. Assuming no one flips, of course!

If the target flips, his move speed becomes 3, meaning we no longer undercut him and we might miss. If the second goblin flips, his attack becomes an M* attack, meaning he will damage our armor and wound us.

So Will They Flip?

For the "Change Tactics" roll, you roll two dice and take the highest one. The chance of one of result coming up a six (meaning either die is a six), is 11/36 or 30.6%. So, here is the breakdown of my chances:

• 48.2%  No one flips, we kill our target and take no damage from the second. This is the best-case scenario
• 21.2%  Our target remains dark-side, but the other guy flips. We get our kill, but the second goblin wounds us.
• 14.1%  Our target flips to light-side, but the other guy remains. We don't get a kill, but aren't harmed either.
• 7.1%  Our target flips to light-side, but the other guy remains. However, we intercept our goblin and kill him anyway.
• 6.3%  Both goblins flip. We miss our target and are wounded by the second goblin.
• 3.1%  Both goblins flip, but we intercept our target and kill him anyway. We are still wounded by the second goblin.

These aren't bad odds, really. We nearly have an 80% chance of killing our target and we have almost a 70% chance of not being harmed this round. That's pretty good. Is it better than our current tactics of playing the FIGHT and MOVE M4* and hoping for an intercept?

• 33.3%  We intercept our target, kill him and are not hit
• 33.3%  We don't intercept our target and we are not intercepted
• 23.2%  We don't intercept our target and are intercepted by the second goblin. However, he remains light-side up and does no damage
• 10.2%  We don't intercept our target and are intercepted by the second goblin who flips and wounds us

We have a 33.3% chance of getting a kill if we wait for an intercept. We have nearly a 90% chance of not taking a wound. So, waiting on an intercept is a slightly more defensive tactic, but seriously drops our chance of getting a kill. Let's go for the kill and play our FIGHT M3**!

Round 4 Position Step

Our repo roll is a 3 so the bottom right box is unchanged, meaning we flip boxes 1 & 2. We roll to change tactics and the goblin who ends up in box 1 flips with a 6/4. The goblin in box 2 does not flip.

Round 4 After Repositioning

Not the worst thing that could happen, or the best. Let's resolve attacks now. Our attack goes first because it is the fastest. Even though we don't intercept our target, we undercut his move speed of 4 with out attack speed of 3 and so we hit, doing M* damage, and kill him. Our weapon becomes unalerted.

The goblin in box 1 "undercuts" us because we didn't play a MOVE chit. He does M* harm, which reduces to M because it hits armor. However, that harm is enough to damage the shield again -- which destroys it. The M harm also wounds us.

We played two asterisks this round, so we will have to fatigue. Because both of our asterisks were on a FIGHT chit, we have to fatigue a FIGHT. We choose one of our remaining FIGHT M4*. We also have to wound a chit. We choose one of our MOVE M4* chits.

Round 5

Round 5 Position Step

We are down to our last goblin, and hoping for a quick end to this costly battle, I go with the FIGHT M3** again. When we roll for repositioning, we get a 2 which swaps boxes 1 & 3 and leaves the middle unchanged. More importantly, our target does not change tactics. This means that when we resolve attacks, we undercut and kill our target before he can wound us.

We have to fatigue a FIGHT again and I will fatigue the FIGHT M3**, making change by bringing our FIGHT M4* back into play. And then the combat is over. We ended up with two wounds and four asterisks fatigued. We also lost our shield. All in all a costly battle, but we felled three goblins.

We are beaten and bruised, but alive!

We will end this tutorial here. Hopefully, you have enjoyed it and learned something. We will continue this soon, adding tremendous monsters, multiple combatants and natives into the mix! If you have questions or comments, please feel free to post them.

Encounter at the Altar

The White Knight and the Barbarian skulked through the Deep Woods. Already, this unlikely alliance had felled spiders and giants and had plundered both the legendary Pool and the foul Cairn. Now, they followed rumors that the Druid had uncovered the unholy Altar and within, the Mouldy Skeleton, both brimming with treasures too heavy for him to possibly carry.

"We'll carry those for you, Dad!" my eleven year-old (Barbarian) snarked, much to the delight of his eight year-old brother (White Knight).

"Yeah, you two go right ahead," I grumped.

I'll admit, I was a little annoyed. I am not a big fan of the Druid. Not because he isn't a good character. His ability to avoid troublesome encounters is handy, but I find his play style to be a little boring -- avoid all fights, loot a site if you're lucky, and read runes, counting on Remedy to remove any curses. Nonetheless, I was excited to stumble upon the Altar and start looting, until I found treasures I could not carry with my light move chits, and the darn Mouldy Skeleton (with its H armor) was just the insult to add to my Druid's herniated disc.

I moved on, into the nearby cliffs, but my boys were all too happy to waltz in and try to collect some free, awesome magic weapons. They searched and looted for a couple of days. The Knight was coming up unlucky, but the Barbarian (with his previously found Lucky Charm) had gleefully claimed the Jade Shield.

But... the Magic Realm has a way of punishing those who push their charmed luck too far and indeed, after the third day of violating his Altar, the Demon arrived to punish the interlopers.

"Who dares violate the sanctity of my Altar!?" the tremendous Demon thundered into the clearing, reeking of sulfur and charred flesh. Though the beast was terrifying, the Knight had faced its kind before and with the power of faith and steel, had emerged victorious.

"This is an auto-kill, right?" Dan had played the White Knight before, and had traded out his slow great sword for the faster morning star.

"If you're hidden, sure. However, if you are not hidden, then the Demon is bound to get the first shot with his spell attack." I reminded Dan, and he and his brother both nodded. The plan was set, hide, maybe get in a couple extra loots, then onto fame and notoriety.

Unfortunately, the dice were not with them and both of them blew their hide rolls, leaving them blocked and exposed in the clearing with the Demon.

They were only a couple of meters from the cover of the stones when the twig snapped, and that crack rang through the clearing as though it came from the felling of a hundred trees. The Demon turned toward the warriors and grinned through razor-sharp teeth. "I smelled you, human filth, now I can see you." The beast charged, the fight was upon them...

"Rogue Seven," bellowed the Barbarian, "this looks dangerous. You take the lead!"

The Barbarian lured the Demon with his rogue hireling. This made sense. The Demon would attack first with his spell, but certainly be killed before he could kill any of the characters with his claws, which means his main threat was the dreaded Power of the Pit. The rogue was immune to the most common effects of this spell, and with the Demon focused on the rogue, the White Knight can ready his morning star in anticipation of the killing blow. Given that they were caught unhidden, this was a great strategy for minimizing their potential losses ("We salute you, Rogue 7!") and winning the fight.

The Demon went first, hit the rogue and... rolled double ones. Fiery Chasm Opens, killing all unhidden characters, natives and monsters in the clearing. Everyone dies. The boys stared at the dice in disbelief. I stifled a chuckle (poorly).

Just another evening in the Magic Realm.

New Spells for Magic Realm

I have been thinking about new spells and figured I would post here to get some feedback. These are just rough ideas. I would need to polish and play test them.

CONVERSION (I/White), one native group, Permanent: The targeted native group becomes friendly to the character for the remainder of the game.

Thoughts: A powerful spell, mitigated by the fact that it is permanent and thus ties up a chit. I could see the Pilgrim taking this as his second spell based on the layout of the board, but he would have to use it very sparingly. Using enhanced magic rules makes this way better, but you still need to energize it.

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LEVITATE (VII/Any), one character, Day: The targeted character can change paths on bridges.

Thoughts: Any spell that allows you to move more freely is very powerful. This would be a great choice for the Elf, Woods Girl, Magician or Pilgrim. I thought of making it VII/Gold, but decided to open it up.

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MIRROR IMAGES (III/Gold), spellcaster, Instant: 1-6 (roll & consult chart) duplicates of the caster are created. Each duplicate immediately pulls a single enemy from the spellcaster's sheet onto its own sheet, as though the duplicate had lured the target in the luring step of the encounter phase. Duplicates that do not lure a target disappear and are lost.

The caster designates one of his MOVE chits and a move direction. All duplicates "play" this move during combat resolution. The caster is not forced to play the same move (chit or direction) as the duplicates and the MOVE chit played by the duplicates does not count against the caster's usage or fatigue for the round.

Duplicates have -- vulnerability and any hit will destroy them.

Duplicate Chart
1 -- 6 duplicates
2 -- 5 duplicates
3 -- 4 duplicates
4 -- 3 duplicates
5 -- 2 duplicates
6 -- 1 duplicate

Thoughts: I am not 100% sure about this one because the mechanic is clunky. Still, this is a potential life saver for the Elf or Wizard who runs into a space they can't handle.

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SERPENT TONGUE (VIII/Any), all the Serpents in the spellcaster's clearing, Day: The spellcaster controls all of the Serpents and Vipers in his clearing.

Thoughts: Same as Control Bats, but I changed the ritual to VIII because talking to snakes seems vaguely sinister. I am not sure about this one, as I am not sure anyone would ever take it over the other VIII options that exist. An option would be to move it to VII.

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SUMMON AID (VI/Any), one native, Combat: The spellcaster sacrifices 1 gold and then summons the top native from any group that has been discovered and is at least friendly to him. The native will fight with the character until the combat ends. If the native is killed, the group's relationship drops by one level.

Thoughts: A neat idea, but it favors the Magician heavily, because he if the only mage that has access to VI rituals with friends on the board. Ultimately, Transform might always be a better bet for the three characters that have access to this spell.

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TORCH BEARER (II/Grey), one character, Instant: The caster must be in a cave clearing to cast this spell. The character converts a chit into a "Torch Bearer" chit which represents a cave spirit summoned to aid the target. As long as the Torch Bearer chit is held by the character, he gets one extra phase/day in the caves.

As soon as the character ends a phase in an outdoor clearing, the chit is fatigued.

Thoughts: Like many, I am not a fan of the various "extra phase" spells, as they are almost never worth the effort. This spell allows a character who plans to make an extended journey into the caves to cast once early on, and gain a benefit for several days. Taking this spell allows a character other than the Dwarf to play a "get to the caves" strategy.

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WALK THE WOODS (II/Grey), one character, Day: The target is able to walk the woods for the day.

Thoughts: This is pretty darn powerful, but no more than Transform or Broomstick. Still, I am concerned that it would be a must-have for anyone who could take it. It would definitely be in my Druid's picks. Another option would be VII/Grey which takes it off the Druid and Witch lists, and gives it to the Magician and Wizard (who needs it less). The Elf, Woods Girl and Pilgrim would be able to cast it, but would need Grey magic.

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WARP WOOD (II/Grey), spellcaster's clearing, Combat: No bow, crossbow, staff, pike, or spear can be played on their alerted side. No natives or monsters with these weapons are immediately flipped to their non-attacking sides and can no longer change tactics.

Thoughts: I like this idea, but I am not sure how much use it would get. There are only a couple of cases where this spell would save you. Great against the Woodfolk and the Spear Goblins and overly-antagonistic Elf players. The Lancers ought to be devastated by this spell, but they aren't. Of course, I am not sure the natives need any more trouble from pesky characters.

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WISP GUIDE (VII/Gold), spellcaster, Day: The caster can use all hidden paths for the day, but he doesn't learn any of them.

Thoughts: A good spell for the Elf and the Woods Girl.

I am still trying to think of more. I am interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas on these.

Tall As A House, Round As A Cup (The Trap of Puzzles in RPGs)

Tall as a house,

Round as a cup,

And all the king's horses

Can't draw it all up?

Puzzles and riddles have been a part of fantasy literature and games since their inception. Bilbo and Gollum partake in a gameof riddles in The Hobbit (the earliest rap battle on record?) . Zork features the famous riddle that starts this blog entry. I remember reaching the bottom of the labyrinth of the evil wizard, Werdna's, only to have to decipher the words, "Contra Dextra Avenue".

Puzzles featured in many old-school D&D games as well. Tons of old modules (especially the ones that were based off tournament modules) were full of tricks and puzzles. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, the Desert of Desolation, Ghost Tower of Inverness, and White Plume Mountain are all examples of dungeons featuring challenging puzzles. In my days as a DM and player, I remember numerous sliding chambers, rotating corridors, teleport rooms, and subtly sloped passages, all designed to confound the players and get their characters lost in the hostile underground, unable to return to civilization and rest in safety.

And for the truly evil GM's, there was Grimtooth's Traps.

As I mentioned in a previous post, you don't see as much of this anymore. Modern games focus more on mechanical, stat-based challenges than their predecessors did -- Character Skill vs. Player Skill.

But, I recently read a thread about this very thing. A GM was talking about his love for puzzles, and how, more often than not, they didn't work. His group was either not interested, or they got stuck and frustrated with the puzzle. If they gave up on the puzzle, his plot was derailed and he had to scramble to figure out how to keep the game going. I am a big fan of puzzles in rpgs, but as many GMs have found, it is hard to get right. Let's talk about some of the pitfalls and how we can avoid them.

The first thing to consider is whether your group is prepared for a puzzle or not.

It sounds silly. Of course your group is ready for a puzzle! They are experienced gamers who have played together for years. They were just complaining yesterday how endless combats were boring them. And there have been a lot of combats recently. It is time to change things up.

So, you decide to engage their intellects instead of their simulated sword arms by throwing an unkillable golem at them. All of their blows bounce harmlessly off the golem's steel skin. Any damage they do manage is immediately healed. But... a mere two rooms ago, if they can solve the riddle the imp gave them, they will know to put on the silver helmet they found last week, giving them control of the golem, who can then smash through the unpenetrable door they ran into two sessions ago...

... And they flail against the golem ineffectually until dead.

Even the best gaming groups are subject to groupthink and getting into problem-solving ruts. Sometimes, the groups that have been together, and have played with the same GM, for a long time are the worst. In my only slightly made up example, the group in question was used to solving problems one way -- the way they had solved them for dozens of gaming sessions -- with their weapons. Expecting them take such a sudden turn and refer back to events two sessions ago and solve a riddle was a little unfair.

Of course, if your group is used to Gygaxian goofiness, then have at it. If not, try warning them, or easing them into the puzzles. Set the tone by starting with something small, obvious, contained and preferably optional. Maybe there is a riddle to open a box or a door to a treasure trove. A map with some cryptic glyphs that need to be deciphered before the group can enter a secret area of the dungeon. As the weeks go on, and the group gets more used to the idea of puzzles in their games, you can pull out more complicated, devious, and referential stuff.

A simple, but important, thing to watch out for when introducing a puzzle is underestimating the time it will take for the group to figure it out.

I learned this lesson when I taught high-school. I was creating these beautiful tests, filled with problems of varying difficulty, covering all of the material we had gone over in previous classes, a true gauge of my students' skill... and no one came close to finishing. I talked to a veteran teacher, "I just don't know what is wrong. I tested the questions and it only took me 15 minutes to get through them. The students ought to be doing better."  The vet told me that I needed to give the students at least 5x the time it took me to do the questions. My 15 minute test was 75 minutes for them -- jam packed into a 50 minute class.

It makes sense, of course. When you write the test, you know what the phrasing of the question means. You know what you expect in an answer. Theoretically, you have been doing this type of problem much, much longer than your students. Most importantly, you know the answer!

Same thing with a puzzle in a game. You already know the answer, so it is clear as day to you. So, maybe you think it will take 15 minutes to solve your runic code, then the group will be off just in time to fight the Skeleton King before the end of the night. You'd better tell the King you'll be late because it is going to take way longer than you think. And as that 15 minutes turns into 30... and then an hour, people lose interest, which makes a solution take even longer.

So... make sure you allot enough time for your players to solve your puzzles. Even better, shorten them a bit. Instead of having to decipher 10 glyphs, make it 5. A snappier puzzle is going to keep peoples' interest more easily than a long one. Another idea for a long puzzle would be to introduce it at the end of the evening and allow people to work on it between sessions. That will give them ample time to discuss and analyze, as well as keep them excited about the gaming session through the week.

Another mistake that is easy to make is not engaging all your players with the puzzle.

Yes, your play on the Gaelic word for "hatpin" is genius, but if not all of your players shared your love of Gaelic, you're going to have a bad time. When you introduce a puzzle to your group, you need to make sure that everyone in the group will be able to play a part in the solution. Puzzles that are based on a skill or knowledge possessed by only one guy in your gaming group tend to lock out the rest of the team -- unless they are really, really short. Best to keep the puzzle away from someone's unique strength... and toward a more general problem that everyone can help solve.

Also, make sure the puzzle is big enough to accommodate the number of people you have playing. If you have handouts, make sure you have enough to go around. If the puzzle relies on players working together to solve a code on a map, make the map big enough so that the whole group can fit around it and work.

When in doubt, favor puzzles with multiple solutions, and puzzles that can be solved by the clever application of the characters' abilities.

In my previous role playing post, someone commented on the practice of "pixel-bitching" (which I knew as "pixel-hunting", but his version is so much angrier), which was when the designer of a computer rpg would require you to click on a specific pixel to solve a puzzle, or open a secret door. This is bad design in a computer game, and unfortunately, is an easy trap to fall into in a tabletop rpg as well. When your puzzle has a single solution which you think is so clever and awesome, and yet, so obvious, that your players, if they just think a little, will get easily... you are setting yourself up for a dead end.

Better to keep your puzzles loose and allow for multiple solutions. Better yet, keep the puzzles firmly within the context of the game. This keeps the players immersed in the game and it encourages them to use their character abilities creatively to solve your puzzle. Your players will come up with all manner of wacky solutions, making them feel like geniuses, and keeping you from the dreaded dead-end adventure.

So, when your stone riddle door is turned to mud by the PC mage, roll with it, friend, and let them enter.

And finally, when all else fails, have a backup plan.

When is all goes wrong, your players are stumped and everyone is frustrated, the worst thing that you can do is make that the dead end to your adventure. Always make sure you have a plan in case the puzzle cannot be solved. Be prepared to give hints. Be prepared to have alternate ways to get through the obstacle in question. Be prepared to totally change the course of your story line, but be prepared with something in the event that your group gets stuck.