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Welcome to another edition of Newbie Confessions,
wherein you get to share in my personal journey through the
wonderful world of Role Playing. Right now, Im getting to RP
being a writer. But enough idle chit-chat. Lets get right down
to the idle jibber jabber instead.
This month, we never managed to get a good time set aside
for an AD&D game, which so far has been the primary topic of
my musings. However, my son and I both picked up various
Mage Knight sets. I picked up a Mage Knight Dungeons starter
set, and we bought our son a Mage Knight Unlimited starter set.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Mage Knight system, its
something of a cross between a collectible card game and a
figure based RPG. The sets come with an assortment of heroes
and monsters (or in non-dungeon sets, an assortment of "units"),
each with a "dial" base. With the dungeon set, you also get a
two sided dungeon map and assorted game materials. Like the
collectible card games, you expand your game by buying
booster packs which contain more heroes and more monsters.
So, rather than an AD&D game this month, Im going to give my
impressions from my first game of Mage Knight.
We sat down at a card table with both his set and mine, and
he proceeded to try and explain the rules to me. One of the
biggest problems with this is, rules tend to be somewhat abstract
until it becomes time to apply them, so most likely I was starting
to get that "glazed eyes" look as he detailed all the various
aspects of Mage Knight game play. To be honest, I cannot
remember much of what he said to me through that time. Of
course, Im also lucky if I remember what I had for lunch today,
or what day this is most of the time, either. A mind is a terrible
thing to waste, and mines getting pretty wasted.
Instead, I subscribe to the theory that learning while doing is
the best way to get lessons well embedded in your mind. Of
course, in RPGing, its also a good way to get halberds
embedded in your characters mind, too. After a short
discussion, we decided to play the Dungeon game, since it
involves one player character in a race against the other player
character to get the loot and get out of the dungeon alive, while
doing ones best to avoid being killed by the random monsters
that inhabit the dungeon. The advantage of Mage Knight is that
it does not require a Dungeon (or Game) Master to run things.
The rules are fairly simplified, and since you play competitively,
each player not only controls their character, but to a certain
extent, the monsters. You work to get your character through
the dungeon, and to move the monsters to where they will inhibit
your progress the least and your opponents progress the most.
Some monsters never really get anywhere, since player one
moves them away from his intended path towards player twos
intended path, and player two moves them right back to where
they started.
So, rule book in hand, I entered the dungeon from the west,
and my son entered from the east. Applying the rules as the
situations arose made the rules less abstract and more practical.
A little digression here. This is another place to appreciate your
DM if you play "master" run games. A good DM will know the
rules of the game, which often can be quite extensive and
convoluted. As we all know, rules are very necessary to having
an enjoyable game. Weve all likely played games with
someone who amended the rules at whim to suit their advantage.
While you might still be able to enjoy a game with such a
person, it can be very difficult to explain to someone else why
you can move a bishop in chess any direction because its the
first Tuesday of the Month, unless, of course, its within two
days of the full moon, at which point the rooks pawns move like
knights. Needless to say, you do not want to play any form of
poker with such a person either.
So, making our way through the dungeon, anticipating
treasure, adventure, and doing our victory dance when we
totally defeat the opponent, we figured out the rules as we went.
We figured out real quick that the rules sucked. Actually, our
dinky first level characters sucked. Even though the monsters
that spawned according to the game rules were all "low level",
getting past them to get to the treasure chest proved something
of a problem for both of us. I went in as a mage character,
while my son went in as a melee fighter. We both came out as
ghosts. No treasure, no glory, and no annoying victory dance to
taunt each other with. I couldnt hit a low level Gnoll Archer
with a magic attack to save my life, literally. Granted, they had
no problems hitting ME. Memo: Use my GOOD DICE next
time. Maybe cheat and advance the dial setting to a higher level
character before starting again. Buy a good selection of really
really dinky monsters to stage in the "monster pool". See? This
collectible stuff works. Were already in the "buy more stuff"
mode.
In all fairness, though, the Mage Knight system seems to
have a lot of "pluses", especially for newbie gamers. Since the
characters all carry their "stats" on them, there is no character
sheets to maintain, nor monster stats to remember. Its all there
on the "board" while you play. It requires only 2d6 per player,
though the same pair of dice could be used by all players, if
anyone wanted to avert the classic "Hes got better dice than
me!" complaint. According to the instructions, there is also a
"solitaire" system that allows the solo player to engage in a
dungeon crawl, though I havent reviewed those rules yet.
Another point is that the average MK Dungeon game is reported
to be around an hours worth of play time, a "plus" if youre on
a tight schedule.
Some thoughts on the game system: For an "aspiring" DM,
the Mage Knight Dungeons system offers a simplified game play
that would permit a similar kind of DM/Player interaction that
other RPG games offer. The DM could chart out the location of
the chests on the map, the location of various monsters, etc. and
then place them once the player(s) entered an area where they
could "see" what was in a particular location, rather than having
the treasure chests pre-located, and monster tokens placed
about the map (MK uses tokens to "randomly" place monsters
about the map. When a player enters the area where the tokens
are, the tokens are turned over, the dice rolled, and monsters
selected from the "pool" according to the results). The DM
would, as with most RPGs, determine the basic objective of the
game, and play the monsters in accordance with their
characteristics. A good DM could also play various monsters
with varying "AI", so that "dumb" monsters would act dumb,
while smarter monsters would show some cunning and creativity.
This would also permit a better atmosphere in MK for the
classic "party system", wherein various characters of different
disciplines work together to conquer the dungeon and escape
with the loot. (Note: This applies mostly to Mage Knight
Dungeons. MK Unlimited is a different play style, and I cannot
comment too much on Unlimited, having not played it yet.
According to my son, regular Mage Knight is kind of a cross
between a CCG and Warhammer. Hopefully, youll know
exactly what that means.)
Mage Knight Dungeons seems to have a decent amount of
play potential to offer, and Im guessing Ill be expanding my
collection of figures at least a little more in the near future.
Granted, maybe when Im no longer a Newbie (yeah, right), Ill
see the game a bit differently, but for now, its a good option for
"play time."
Maybe by next month Ill have made it through a dungeon
alive.
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