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**Lord Diamond** · 03-12-2015, 01:40 PM

Magic: The Gathering and Dungeon's & Dragons are both great games, but the only element they have in common is that they are both fantasy based.

I haven't played D&D in decades, but I have most of the rulebooks up until 8 or 10 years ago. I just enjoy reading them. I play MTG whenever my buddies and I get together or when there are pre-releases; maybe 5 times a year. I have a box of Fate Reforged waiting for my best friend to visit next week.

I liked Warhammer and spent thousands on it, but never could find time to play often. I sold most of my collection at a profit.

Feralkoala · 03-12-2015, 03:28 PM

Mark Herman is my top strategy game designer. Started at SPI in the 70s, ran Victory Games in the 80s, and is still designing today.

For Eurogames, Vladil Chvatka (sp?), did some of my favorites (Through the Ages; Mage Knight: The Boardgame; and Dungeon Lords), but not everyone's cup of tea.

Gary Grigsby still publishes with Matrix Games and has a dedicated fan base. His games are definitely niche-oriented--I don't particularly care for them myself. There has been a renaissance of simpler, wargame oriented computer game titles in the past few years.

For RPGs, I like more the modern indie designers (Vincent Baker, John Harper, and others), although I still remember the *zing* I got from reading Ars Magica 1st edition back in 1987--Tweet and Rein-Hagen, just starting out, making something fantasy-oriented but so very different from D&D. But Gygax and Arneson had the first-out-the-door thing and certainly the hobby would be completely different without their contributions.

**Ry Vor** · 02-06-2017, 04:45 AM

Just in our nostalgia mood I thought I'd revisit this old thread for those newcomers that hadn't seen it.

**Thunderb0lt** · (This post was last modified: 02-06-2017, 05:48 AM by Thunderb0lt.)

I love Axis and Allies and i also love Risk and have the Middle Earth version of it, board games that is. I love D&D games too and have Pool of Radiance on PC . Never could get into card games, just didnt occupy my mind and didnt know anyone else who did. Stratego is also a good game. Was a big Warcraft/Starcraft player. Also like some space games like Masters of Orion. And Avalon Hill games, almost forgot them.

**RELLGAR** · 02-06-2017, 01:09 PM

Axis and allies was the bomb.I played over 500 games and competed in many tournaments. Now I play world war 2 the board game by Pegasus games, created by Jeff stien. I was a big D&D player in the 70s and 80s sinc then I'm more of a white wolf RPG player. My favorite computer games was master of magic and masters of orion. I went through many of the Avalon hill boxed military games but they never retained my interest.
The good old days.
Rellgar

**Ry Vor** · 02-06-2017, 07:56 PM

When friends and acquaintances ask me what I do now that I'm not working for someone, in order to start to explain Alamaze and other ideas, I usually start with chess or Risk, games most people that would ask the question are familiar with.

I sometimes say Alamaze is chess for 12 players with terrain and where all players execute their moves simultaneously.

Risk we get more into board games and conquering, but we have some of the decision making of where to place armies and an idea of what the early strategy will be like in a multi-player game.

Axis and Allies or the less well known Shogun has some more complexity to it, additional game play elements. When we get to that part, those questioners can often start to understand Alamaze, although they haven't played a game with simultaneous turns unless they somehow also know about Diplomacy.

As regards comparing D&D with MTG, I have a hard time ranking them in terms of the sheer genius. Something of a problem with D&D is it relies entirely on the skill of the dungeon master. If you don't have a really good one, I could see how the game isn't really that impressive. In those cases, its like reading a poor novel. You have a great DM, and you spend a lot of free time thinking about the next episode.

MTG provides more structure, although if you think Alamaze has lots of rules modifications, you should compare to MTG. But you are not subject to the imagination of your DM, only your own imagination and the skill of your opponent. Setup is not an issue, play for 30 minutes or 6 hours as you choose.

I was going to do a board game when one of our players asked me to for a publishing company, but I may have taken too long. Besides Alamaze, some of the sources of inspiration would have been a 3M bookshelf game called Feudal, and a game called Magic Realm, as well as using modern constructs like Settlers of Catan offer. I think players would have liked a combination of cards, dice, board and magic.

02-06-2017, 09:01 PM

Oddly enough, some of the translations in this new golden age of boardgaming work quite well when you think they might not. A great example is Civilization the Board Game. Having played the first 5 versions on succesive computers over the last 20+ years I was skeptical but the board game is quite good!

**Ry Vor** · (This post was last modified: 02-07-2017, 02:30 AM by Ry Vor.)

I am a fan but have held off on Civ 6 early reviews were at best mixed. I'm usre I'll get it but part of the problem reported was that it seemed a console game ported to the PC.

Anyway, Civ 5 is probably the candidate for best strategy game ever, at least this side of chess.

**Thunderb0lt** · 02-07-2017, 03:09 AM

And on that note i plan to buy Civ 5 as my next game purchase. Looking for Master of Orion on Steam also. Steam has a very good platform with alot of games to offer. I use the discord server for real time txt or voice chats and like to use Teamspeak to coordinate live with real time games. Speaking of which i left out the Command and Conquer series which are great. As for chess, I learned to play around age 15 and ended up helping our High School team get 3rd in state in Indiana, got a trophy with my name on it. Dont play anymore, i have lost my mindset for it.