Magic Realm: A Labor of Love

Have you guys seen what this guy ( boardgamegeek.com/thread/257164 ) is doing? He's single handedly redesigning Magic Realm.

I've never played MR. But I've always wanted to. Nobody I know has it, and I downloaded some computer program that you can play, but it didn't teach you to play and the rules look really long.

Either way I think this guy is doing a fantastic looking job. Who's up for buying the rights from AH, paying this fella a handsome some and publishing this piece of art?

If you want to learn the game, read at least some of the 3rd edition rules and Joel Yoder's MAGIC REALM in Plain English. Then just poke around Realmspeak for a while and eventually it'll all make sense.

It'll probably never see print again sadly- it's a masterpiece but I can't imagine it selling in the numbers it would need to so fan projects are the best way it seems to rejuvenate it.

Man, I spent the entire summer of 1980 playing one game of Magic Realm after another ... would split the characters into "good" and "evil" teams and pit then against each other, with home-brewed rules for taking prisoners (and rescuing same), both sides racing to recruit the various allies on the board and find powerful magic items to use against the other ... didn't realize until I discovered BGG that we were supposed to be having trouble with the rules.

(Damn ... that was nearly 30 years ago. Now I feel old)

Foolishly loaned the game out to my cousin's boyfriend in the late 1980's ... fortunately, I eventually got it back (it will never leave my possession again). I'll have to look into this guy's redesign -- I keep never getting around to printing out the vastly improved counter art that's available on MR sites.

From one of the latter post on that thread, it seems the rights might have reverted back to Richard Hamblen, so maybe eventually someone will reprint it...

I love the redesign done by Karim in that thread. He seems to be trying to get publishers interested too... Maybe with a preorder system a small print run could be made if the problems with the rights are solved...

-Jorge

A reprint of Magic Realm would probably unfortunately be incredibly expensive given the number of components...

Still, that thread attracted my attention too. We always bitch about internet communities and the like gone awry but that BGG thread is an example of the best of internet community and creativity.