Fall of Magic Arrives

About two weeks or so ago I took delivery of The Fall of Magic, a project I had kicked into in late May, and a nice item it is too.

The box it comes in is reminiscent of the sorts of games my great grandmother had hiding in the back of her closet. More like the box in which you'd find a tenor recorder than a game. Inside is a really neat idea.

The chief component of the game is the map, which is presented on a linen scroll that the players unroll as they advance through the game, depicting a road and towns along the route, each with four locations picked out. There are counters for the players, cards that extend the map when the players reach "the islands" and a die for the rare random number needs.

The conceit of this GM-less RPG is that the magic in the world is dying. We don't know why. The players are students of The Magus. The Magus is undertaking a journey or pilgrimage. We don't know why. All the things we don't know about the magic, the Magus, the journey and the other players will hopefully be made manifest as the journey progresses.

Each turn a player can move his/her counter along the road to a new location or move the (non-player) magus to the next town. As each player moves, he or she adds a little more detail to the story of the journey, prompted by hints determined by that player's location.

There's a bit more to the game than this, but that is the gist of what the game is about. It is a cooperative storytelling, a cross between Fiasco! and Tokaido to put it entirely too broadly.

This game also represents something of a rarity: a game Kickstarter project that ran for less than a year and delivered what it said it would only about three weeks late. That should make it eligible for some sort of Kickstarter award.

I can't wait to play.

Pictures to follow later when I have time to arrange them; Watch this space.

New Purchases

So I've kicked into two new projects over at Kickstarter.com.

The first is the Planet Mercenary RPG, a role playing game set in the universe of Schlock Mercenary, something I was toying with doing myself using Savage Worlds and a home-brewed sourcebook. The art has been upgraded from the Schlock Mercenary webcomic standard, which I felt was unnecessary. One can hope that the webcomic sensibilities survive the translation process too.

The second game is The Fall of Magic which I was directed to by fellow gamer and author-in-training Dunx. The Fall of Magic is a board-come-rpg game in which the players move across a printed map (the gimmick is that the map is arranged as a scroll that is only unrolled as much as is needed at the time in play) and extemporize a narrative for their character as to what is happening and why. It looks to be similar in general terms to Fiasco¹, and intrigued me enough to kick in at the Fall of Magic Kickstarter project.

I've also acquired two games through more traditional means.

Pandemic is a traditional board game in which players cooperate as medical teams to eradicate diseases as they bloom and spread across the world. The materials are well made and attractive to look at (very important in a board game) and the game play is straightforward. I've watched it played numerous times and everyone seems to have a blast. I'm looking forward to playing with people who haven't seen it before.

The second, Mars Attacks, is a dice and card game, superficially similar to Elder Sign in that dice are rolled and cards claimed by achieving dice scores "Yahtzee" style. The conceit here is that the players are Martians trying to collect buildings, artifacts and so forth by the sorts of shenanigans depicted in the movie. A simple game that looks like a lot of fun.

1. Just about the most fun you can have with your clothes on↑