This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting (i.e. voting for) it. Please make it clear for when I check the bets later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.
Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;
To commemorate the opening of the Trashdome category, which I didn't know about until I saw it just now, I'm going to run a very special episode of Trashdome in addition to the regular TD on Monday. Rules per normal including ending next Friday, except for this one time...
THREE GAMES ENTER! ONE GAME LEAVES!
Last edit: 21 Aug 2009 21:10 by ChristopherMD. Reason: Yes, I realize the irony of two guys surviving the gunfight.
Gunslinger narrowly edges out Magic Realm, but they are both great games. If I was reading this tomorrow, I might choose MR, but at this moment I'm thinking I would rather play GS. Someone really needs to do an updated slightly (just slightly) more streamlined version of Gunslinger.
This is just fucking mean Maddog. Ok let me spell it out for you simpletons that haven't figured it out by now. If there's a Game Designer Hall of Fame, then Richard Hamblin is in the same hall as other brilliant minds like Francis Tresham, Gary Gygax, Sid Sackson and Klaus Teuber. In my book if it's a choice between a Hamblin design and most anyone else, Hamblin wins. Now all that being said if I have to pick only one of these games, then it's Magic Realm.
I've played Gunslinger once, but I thought that it was great, the very best of a genre.
I am very interested in Magic Realm, but can't decide if it's worth the trouble to try to learn on my own. I keep falling asleep while reading the rules, and the whole handling of combat just seems ridiculously complex.
Merchant of Venus sounds like a very good game, but I'm generally not interested in economic games, especially pickup and deliver ones. The exploration element sounds somewhat interesting.
Gunslinger = Good
Merchant of Venus = Bad
Magic Realm = Ugly
I'll sit in the Fortress' Corner of Shame as I haven't played any of them.
(I did own MR in my teens but never got into the rules or found any opponents, found it a few years back in my dad's house and promptly traded it on BGG for RoboRally)
I am very interested in Magic Realm, but can't decide if it's worth the trouble to try to learn on my own. I keep falling asleep while reading the rules, and the whole handling of combat just seems ridiculously complex.
That's probably because you were reading those bullshit 2nd or 3rd edition rules. Sorry to bag on the fans' work, but those two rulesets did exactly the opposite of what they should have done. The 1st edition rules wieghed in at a respectable 30 or so pages, and that was including all the spells, a summary of each character, and optional rules. If anything, that number of pages needed to go down, not up. Instead, the rulebook has ballooned into this insane 80+-page monster that just makes the game harder to learn by several orders of magnitude.
Combat in MR is not that complex. It's basically rock-paper-scissors, except you automatically hit your target if the attack you played was faster than the movement he played. It gets a little more complicated than that when you throw spells and denizens into the mix, but still, it all gets resolved the same way.
(I did own MR in my teens but never got into the rules or found any opponents, found it a few years back in my dad's house and promptly traded it on BGG for RoboRally)
This one is a hard one... I've never played Gunslinger, and having to choose between MR and MoV is hard because although I think MR is the better game, but MoV is a game we can play very often, it's Science Fiction which is my favorite genre and is still one of my favorite games... Right now my gf and main gaming partner won't play MR, and I only get to play multiplayer games by PBEM (I'm currently playing on Board2 of the current tournament) although I do play solo using Realmspeak...
So in the end I guess it'd have to be Magic Realm (by a very small margin). Despite its complexity, it is the definitive adventure game with no "GM" or "overlord" needed, it uses many mechanics that are still as original and clever today as they were back when it was released and really gives a feeling of a live and dynamic fantasy world...
BTW, I do really like MR's original art, but if you think it's ugly, check the redesign that Karim Chakroun did for the game. It's excellent, and a great way to get your own copy of the game if you're willing to put a bit of work...
(I did own MR in my teens but never got into the rules or found any opponents, found it a few years back in my dad's house and promptly traded it on BGG for RoboRally)
You ought to get banned for this.
Look - I'm standing in the 'mock him severely' corner, so let's just leave it at that ... and never mention this episode again. (and I actually found people to play Roborally)
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