This is a capsule review. It’s based on the concept that one can review a game book even without playtesting and still provide useful data to the person interested in the game and the game book. As Greg Stolze once said, “The book is the book and the game is the game. The book helps create the game, but it can only help. You can review it as a book, you can review how much it helps, but reviewing an individual session can (at its worst) be as useless as reviewing an individual snowflake.”
BEFORE THE REVIEW
One day I discover in a RPGnet Open forum thread that Olivier Legrand was looking for me. Thanks to Mithras we got in contact. He wanted me to review Mazes & Minotaurs. I obliged, specially since I had not long before (days? weeks?) downloaded his excellent Gnomes and his no less excellent La Terre des Héros (both games in French since Olivier’s grand-grand-grand-father was actually named Olivierix). I could only oblige and review M&M. I’m still waiting for the yellow pack with my M&M drops to arrive in my mail, though. Until then I’ll stick to the pdf rpg.
Unlike Olivier’s previous games, M&M is in English and there is a story to it that started with Mithras at a RPGnet column. I’ll not detail the thing because you can read it yourself. I’ll just stick to the core idea: “You wanna know what I think? With the release of M&M D20 I think someone should go back to Gary's first idea and produce a Medieval version of 'Mazes and Minotaurs'. They could even call it 'Dungeons and Dragons.'” Got it? Not yeat? Ok, let’s go to Olivier’s more extensive presentation:
“I wanted to write this game as a personal exercise in game design. From my perspective, it was a triple challenge : // 1) Write a complete game in English (which is not my native language). // 2) Write a game with a genuine old-school, 1970s feel, reminiscent of early D&D (…) // 3) Write a game that would be totally coherent with Paul's article : a game that would 'feel' as 'the first RPG that never was' or perhaps, more accurately, the first RPG that could have been'... (…) // But I also wanted Mazes & Minotaurs to be more than an exercise in game design or a nostalgic pastiche – I wanted the game to be a real, working, playable game. (…)”
In the review I’ll consider how well the game lives up to Olivier’s yardsticks keeping in mind that the first three criteria have more to do with style while the last one is fully about content. Finally, I decided to include this game in my suspended series of Fantasy rpgs reviews because, well, M&M is fantasy.
STYLE
M&M is a 74 pages black & white pdf, including the cover page. Most of the text is in a regular-sized sans serif font. The text is in two columns and as a good balance of content per page (meaning that in each page there’s neither wasted space or excessive text). In other words, it’s an easy read. The writing is clear, simple, direct and to the point. There are some small typos. A nice touch is the consistent usage of section titles in a X & Z style. There’s a liberal usage of black & white drawings most of which are average rendition of Greco-Roman iconography. All pages have a border with a Greek-inspired rectangular labyrinth motive.
The book follows a very standard structure: Table of contents, character creation (9 pp.), combat (4 pp.), magic (7 pp.), adventuring including everything else a character can do (5 pp.), creatures (31 pp.), data for the Game Master (11 pp.) and character sheet. The only feature for reference is the table of contents, in other words, there’s no index, glossary or mention in the pages to the current section. This is not a major issue, though, given the fact that we are dealing with a 72 pages book (not including cover and character sheet) where almost half is taken by the description of creatures.
The character sheet is functional being basically a form with fields for all the relevant stats and data.
There’s something I didn’t mention until now: M&M is presented as the 2006 reprint of the original game published in 1972 with the addition of notes and comments that contrast the design of the 70’s with the evolution in the rpg hobby through more than two decades of gaming. This and an apropriate usage of irony make for a tongue-in-cheek tone that’s entertaining without turning the game into a parody.
How does the game measure up to Olivier’s criteria? Yes, it is written in English and well written enough that one doesn’t realise English is not his mother tongue. Yes, the game has an old-school feel in terms of the things it covers (combat, magic, adventuring, mosters) and in terms of the way the content is presented (no fiction, just plain rules). Yes, the game is totally coherent with Paul’s article (and Paul seems to agree with this since he wrote the foreword). I would just say that the game seems a little too perfect to competely feel as ‘the first rpg that could have been’.
Summing it up, Mazes & Minotaurs has style. I’ll give it a 4.
SUBSTANCE I – SETTING
Mazes & Minotaurs. Mazes & Minotaurs plus male adventurers dressed in short sleeveless dresses. Where does this lead us to? Ancient Grece, of course! M&M has been conceived as the Ancient world alternative to D&D, something that makes sense when we remember that D&D was the outgrowth of a fantasy minis wargame at a time when minis wargaming was also very much about the Greeks and Romans. Now, M&M is not exactly innovative on this account. One of the most successful fantasy rpgs of the 70s and 80s was RuneQuest 2, a game that also had a very strong Ancients inspiration. It was also my first rpg and that Ancients inspiration was a hit with me (my first mini was a mediocre 15mm medieval knight that I immediatelly converted into a very mediocre 15mm pseudo-Greek soldier). Given this I can only commend M&M for leaning to Homer instead of to Tolkien.
On the other hand, notice that M&M is Greco-Roman fantasy: It is no less Greek than D&D is medieval (well, maybe M&M is more Greek than D&D is medieval but only a lit bit more). This is a good thing. Often when games try to draw inspiration from real world eras other than Medieval Europe they tend to get serious about their faithfulness to their source of inspiration and strive for accuracy. They are more about historical roleplaying than fantasy roleplaying as if their designers wanted to show how much they know about that period. (Not all games inspired in non-medieval eras are like this, mind you, let’s keep generalizations under control.) Not M&M and it couln’t be otherwise since It was designed as the Ancients equivalent of D&D. That makes me happy, not only because it reminds me of RuneQuest 2 but also because it departs from Basic D&D at the “factual” level while keeping its fantasy side intact. And it has been beautifully done, the way M&M handles its Greco-Roman inspiration is just great. It does not attempt to recreate a whole Ancients world modeled on the Mediterranean (even if it includes Mythika, as a proposal of game world – two pages, one for the map). It basically provides a bunch of key roles that are heavily and craftly inspired on South Europe 250BC (more or less two centuries) for blokes like me to play plus some data on the Ancient world (like brief outlines of the gods) for the culturely impaired.
In typical old school fashion the gamebook reserves lots of space for the adversaries of the characters. The Creatures section is the largest with its 32 pages, almost half of the book. There are 76 criters divided into Folks, Beasts, Monsters, Spirits and Animates (compacted into 25 pages of stats and description) including all the expected fiends of Greco-Roman lore but also plenty that came from other sources of inspiration. In this sense the creatures list is more of a generic resource with an Ancients leaning.
Other than creatures M&M also offers the GM some good advaice on how to create adventures in an Ancients fantasy world with cameos on Monster Hunt, Artefact Quest, Heroic War, Underworld Journey and Mysterious Islands. This last alternative got more detail including a series of tables for the random creation of islands (the M&M equivalent of the dungeon???). There are also some 3.5 pages of Mythic Items (a lot given the fact that this is such a small book but nothing to compare with the 921 magic items in the Warfare & Wizardry book referred to in the 2006 Edition Notes & Comments): Magical armament, potions & consumables, rings & amulets, staves & wands, miscellaneous items and unique items. Unfortunately there’s no introductory scenario. I would have loved to see a concrete example of Olivier’s fake alternative to the ancilary proposition of dungeon exploration found in original D&D.
SUBSTANCE II – SYSTEM
While presenting the game system I’ll follow the pace of the gamebook. I will also do some benchtesting meaning that I did not playtest M&M, instead I did a pen-and-paper version of what IT magazines do when they test new software and hardware: I made some simulations to see how the system works.
Character creation. The quantitative data first: Character creation is spelt in 9 pages including three pages describing the character classes (2 per page, each with a drawing and small box of text) and one with drawings of twelve Greek deities (oddly enough these are not with the descriptions of the gods in the GM section – a nod to old school gamebook mistructuring?). In fact, the text in the character creation section could easily fit 4 or five pages once we take out all the art.
Characters have six attributes – Might, Skill, Luck, Wits, Faith and Grace – with values that range from 3 to 18 (based on six rolls of 4d6 and summing the three better dice; the player assigns the values to the attributes as he wants). Next the value of each attribute is mapped into modifier scores that go from Abysmal (-3) to Exceptional (+3).
The second stage is class selection. Basically each attribute has a corresponding class and the class of the character is equal to the one associated with his highest attribute. The classes are Barbarian/Amazon (Might), Spearman (Skill), Noble (Luck), Sorcerer (Wits), Priest (Faith) and Nymph (Grace).
After giving the character a name, gender (it has to be consistent with the class – for instance, Amazons and Nymphs have to be female while Spearmen are male) and age the player calculates from the attribute modifiers a set of combat modifiers for melee and missile attacks, and initiative. Further to this he calculates (once more from the attribute modifiers) the character’s Basic Defence Class (12 plus luck mod), Hits Total, Danger Evasion, First Reaction and Mystic Fortitude.
Next the player takes notice of the character’s class features (special ability, equipment and wealth).
Sorcerers, Priests and Nymphs – the magic-using classes – add another characteristic, Power Points (9 plus the modifier of the attribute required by their class). After that the player notes his magic-user abilities: Sorcerers get one spell per level; Priests choose the god they worship and gain one divine prodigy per level; Nymphs need to be assigned a kin (Dryad, Naiad, etc.) and receive a Nature’s gift per level.
Finaly the player registers the initial Glory Points of his warrior (Barbarian/Amazon, Spearman or Noble) or the starting Wisdom Points of his magic-user (Sorcerer, Priest or Nymph), 0 in all cases. Character creation ends with a column with the 2006 Edition Notes & Comments. It’s a fun read with snipets like the heated debated on wether the Satyr should be elligible for a playable character class (a special fun read for me considering my choice of peoples for Rough Quests).
Comments: M&M’s character creation mechanics are very streamlined, simple and fast. They basically break up character classes into two sets, warriors and magic-users. Some of the statistics in each of these two sets are similar (for instance, all starting warriors have 12 Hits (plus attribute mod), while all magic-users have 8). Warrior classes are different enough among themselves (even if Amazons and Barbarians are grouped together they are different enough to for me to handle them as two separate classes). We will see this better when I benchtest combat but Barbarians excel at fast and furious melee assaults, Amazons are oriented towards missile attacks, Spearmen should focus on steady, organized combat, and Nobles relly on their excellent defensive abilities. Each of the Magic-using classes has its own character, as we will see below. All in all, M&M offers plenty of choice for the player, with well-balanced options between fighters and magic-users, and plenty of opportunities for female characters (Amazons, Noblewomen, Priests of female goddesses, Nymphs).
I benchtested character creation by designing seven characters, one for each class (I didn’t roll the attributes, though; to keep balance I just assigned a mod of +3 to the leading attribute for the character, a mod of +1 to another attribute and a mod of -2 to a third attribute). I can say that I can create a character in way less than 10 minutes. It means a group of players can get together and start playing in less than 15 minutes.
By creating characters for each class I could compare their relative strenghs and weaknesses. For a start, there’s a clear difference between the warrior classes and the magic-user classes in terms of initiative, melee attack and missile attack (in this case with the exception of the Barbarian that tends to have a low score). The differences among the four warrior classes are harder to gauge by just looking at the character sheet and need combat benchtesting to come out – see below. In any case, what differentiates characters within any given class are the values in their attributes and the corresponding modifiers, something that ultimately depends in luck – the attribute rolls – and the choices of the player when assigning the values rolled to the different attributes. After that there’s not much to decide on what concerns the warrior classes while the magic-user classes still have scope for some decisions on the part of the player.
Character advancement. M&M characters move from level 1 to level 6. Advancement is based on gaining glory in the case of warriors, or getting wisdom if the character is a magic-user. Glory is gained by defeating creatures or accomplishing heroic deeds; wisdom accumulates when the character beats supernatural opponents or explores the unknown. I loved this. M&M sets independent but consistent objectives to the two sets of classes, thus the rules do not benefit one at the expense of the other. Each new level the character increases his stats in a standard fashion: Warriors gain +1 to melee, missile, danger evasion and mystique fortitude, and +3 to hits; magic-users gain +1 to danger evasion, +2 to hits and mystic fortitude, and the level magical power.
I benchtested the character advancement rules by advancing my seven characters to level 6. The first noticeable thing, as was said above, was that all warrior classes advance in the same exact terms and all the magic-user classes advance in the same terms. There’s a risk here that the different classes may start to become more and more similar and undifferentiated while the character progresses in levels. We will see if this holds true when we benchtest combat with my level 6 characters.
Resolution mechanics and combat. As expected action resolution is handled in the combat section. If character creation was brief, combat is a model of conciseness: 5 pages including one for the 2006 Editon Notes and Comments, take out the art and the whole would fit in three pages. The resolution mechanic is simply another iteration of 1d20 plus mods versus target number (maybe this is part of the “faux first rpg” aspect of M&M). It’s a mechanic I’m not particularly fond of but I can live with it, specially in simple games like this.
Conflict is broken up into battle rounds (maybe the name is a nod to Ancients wargaming, the non-declared fake origin of M&M) that have three phases: Decision, movement and combat. I’ll consider that the first two are self-explanatory or I’ll end writing about them as much as can be found in the gamebook (but I may add that movement is subject to reductions based on terrain and encumbrance). The first battle round is subject to some particularities: First and foremost, it’s when the order of action is fixed to the whole fight according to initiative (1d10 plus the initiative score); second, one of the sides can be surprised, and in that case it cannot attack, only defend.
As I mentionned, action resolution is simply a question of comparing 1d20 plus the melee attack score of the attacker plus any attack mods with the defence class of the defender plus defense mods. If the attack is equal or above the defence there’s damage. Damage is fixed at 1d6 to HPs (the 2006 Edition Notes and Comments have a reference to the many house rules that attempted to change this).
The rules cover several tactical issues like facing (with mods to defense class), the reach of melee weapons (more mods to melee attack), armour (mods to defense class for helmet, breastplate and shield), retreat (disengages the fighters), charge (mod to initiative and melee attack score), shield wall (bonus to defence class), desperate attack (bonus to melee attack, penalty do defence class), holding back (only by the fighter with the highest reach), two weapons fighting (mods to either melee attack or defence class), subterfuge and danger evasion (remember that stat? It’s used while the character does not engage in combat). Most of these rules are very simple and work on the same terms with mods to either the melee attack or the defence class scores. Some of them are a direct nod to the setting that inspires the game (retreat, shield wall, holding back).
The rules for missile combat work on the same lines that melee combat, with the necessary changes to the nature of the conflict. There are also – as we could expect – rules for unarmed combat that deal with pugilism and wrestling.
The combat section ends with a very entertaining page of 2006 Edition Notes and Comments that underscores some of the choices made by Olivier when designing M&M, choices that have to do with his intention to come up with “the rpg that predated D&D”.
I like these four pages of rules. Their deceptive conciseness, clarity and simplicity desguise a lot of potential for gaming fun. Just by reading them I could think about a lot of alternative tactics to be used by the different warrior classes, which leads me to my benchtesting of the combat rules.
In order to see how the different classes worked against each other I benchtested fights between level 1 characters of the different classes and between level 6 characters of the different classes. I did this for both melee and missile combat.
Actually it’s simpler than it may seem. All I did was to calculate how many rounds it takes a character of a given class and level to reduce the HPs of an adversary of a given class and level to 2 (yes, to level two; that’s enough to put down the adversary even if he is not dead). To achieve this all I needed was to devide the HPs of the defender by the average damage the attacker does to him in a round. This last bit is the tricky one but nothing requiring much thought: Take the chance to hit (if you ask it’s 20 – the maximum value the attacker can roll – plus the attacker’s melee mod less the defender’s defence class divided by the defender defence class); multiply it by the average damage the attacker can do if his attack is successful (the average of a 1d6 roll is 3.5 plus any class modifiers that may apply to damage, something that only concerns Barbarians in the case of melee and Amazons in the case of missile); and you get the average damage a character of a particular class and level does to a character of another particular class and level. Put all of this is some tables of your spreadsheet and voilá, you know how long it takes a certain class/level combination to reduce the HPs of a member of another class/level combination to 2. Simple, no?
Now, just compare how long it takes your level 1 Barbarian to put down a level 1 Noble, compare it to how long it takes the level 1 Noble to put down the level 1 Barbarian, and you know who of the two has an advantage in the combat (don’t spend your gray cells, I’ll tell you: Is the one that needs less rounds to put down the other).
The conclusions where interesting and sometimes surprising (I will only present information for combats among warrior classes because magic-users will be explained at a later stage). The level 1 spearman beats all the other level 1 warriors in a one-on-one straight melee combat. Next comes the nobleman, the barbarian and at last the amazonian. In level 1 to level 1 missile combat things change and the order is nobleman, amazonian, spearman and barbarian. If we shift to level 6 vs. level 6 the order is spearman, barbarian, nobleman and amazonian for melee, while it doesn’t change for missile combat. This may seem to mean that there’s an imbalance among classes in favour of the spearman. It would be true if it was not for the different tactical rules. You see, the spearman is advantaged whenever he can fight as the tipical Greek spearman: Spear in one hand, shield in the other, enemy in front, open terrain all aroud. Change these conditions and things get a different turn. The barbarian, for instance, may tap into things like surprise attacks, charges, two weapon fighting, desperate attacks, attacks from the back and terrain to turn things in his favour, the amazon may focus on her missile skills, and so on. In the end the class that may have the better deal is the noble… which makes sense, doesn’t it?
Before concluding the benchtest I realized there was something missing. Remember, the game is Mazes & Minotaurs. I had to pit the fighters against that dear monster. How did he do with level 1 warriors? Not that good. He basically draws with the barbarian, beats the amazonian and the nobleman and is defeated by the spearman. Once more, it’s all a question of perspective: A properly played Minotaur will not stay there in a well lighted corridor of the maze waiting for you. He will play deceit and maze guerrilla tactics. He will keep an eye on your warrior and take advantage of his perfect knowledge of the maze; he will wait until your warrior gets tired and worn out by encounters with minor fiends; he will sneak on your warrior and surprise him with a hit and run attack. In the hands of a good GM the Minotaur uses terrain and tactics to his devastating advantage. M&M allows for this.
After careful consideration I must say that I like M&M’s combat system a lot. It provides for much variety with a commodum of rules complexity. In this it plays like any good skirmish wargame without sacrificing on roleplaying.
I already mentionned that there are three paths to Magic in M&M: Sorcery, religion and nature. The magic-user can only use the magical powers provided by his path, gaining a new power per level. To fuel magic he spends Power points in such terms that each usage of a power costs a flat 1d6 PPs. These are recovered differently in the three paths: Sorcerers recoer PPs by sleeping, priests by performing religious rituals, and Nymphs by immersion on their natural element. On the passive side, magic can be resisted with 1d20 plus the Mystic Fortitute stat.
M&M Sorcerers are mentalists, almost like psychics.They have powers of deception (illusion, cloak) and mental domination (confussion, compelling, psychic attack and enslavement). Priestly divine prodigies are also six: Divine blessing provides bonus to two mods (the exact mods vary with the god worshiped by the priest) or instead two penalties if the player chooses to use the prodigy as a divine curse; divination; divine vitality, a healing power; divine gift, more or less a more powerful version of divine blessing and also different from deity to deity; divine wrath, the “weapon” of the gods; divine intervention that makes the god appear in all his power. Obviously there are also six Nature’s gifts available to Nymphs: Nature’s charm that entrances the victims; nature’s guises that allow the Nymph to change her appearance; Nature’s comfort, a healing power; Nature’s favour that allows the Nymph to bestow a special power on the subject (the power changes with the kin of the Nymph); Nature’s curse where the Nymph kisses the victim with some unpleasant effect (also varies with kin); Nature’s mastery allows the Nymph to “summon spectacular manifestations of Nature’s might, control elements and bring inanimate things to life” (once more with different powers for the different kins).
The section ends with the expected 2006 Notes and Comments that shed light on the decisions taken by Olivier when designing the magic system for M&M. Once more a fun read.
I loved these magic rules (and the fact that they fit into 6.5 pages). Each path has its own character. The powers are flexible, yet simple and balanced. They have a lot of variety without requiring endless pages of separate micro-powers (meaning spells). They allow magic-users to craft a space for themselves at the side of the warrior classes without putting these in the shadow or making the magic-user redundant. If there is a section in the M&M rulesbook that I’ll come back to in my rpg designs its precisely the magic section.
How do magic-users play in the benchtest? For a start, they should avoid fights at all costs because they are really disadvantaged when compared to warriors. For that purpose they should use terrain, danger evasion (instead of defending themselves after entering melee they should keep out of the reach of their enemies)... and a screen of warriors in their front.
Lower levels magic-users have both a smaller set of powers and less Power points points to fuel the ones they have. Since the expense of PPs is 1d6 irrespective of the power being used this means that the main concern of the magic-user is their expenditure. For him resource management becomes a clear concern. A level 1 character with 12 PPs can expect to be able to use his powers around 3 to four times before needing to recover them while a level 6 character with 32 PPs can antecipate using his powers 9 times. Furthermore it takes the characters 1 hour to recover a number of PPs equal to their level, something that greatly advantages higher levels.
The powers themselves are ordered in such a way that each type of magic-user has fields where he excels and contributes more to the party when compared with the others. Even level 1 sorcerers can have a sizable contribution with their confusion spell. Yes, it does not kill or maim but it can put out of action a powerful adversary at a particularly critical juncture. With enslavement the level 6 sorcerer is actually able to “buy” the harware he needs to extend his limited fighting abilities. Even a level 1 priest can be a worthy member of a party of adventurers, specially if he works in tandem with a warrior character on which to cast a divine blessing. In fact most of the priestly powers have a supportive role. Low level Nymphs have powers of a more subtle nature, working better for non-combat situations. At high levels they are able to bring into the party some odd but certainly wellcome ammunition. In any case, remember that powers used against living creatures can be resisted on a roll of 1d20 plus mystique fortitude equal or above 15 – a rather meager safety (on average a level 1 warrior will fail 75% of the time while a level 6 will still fail 50%). The bottom line is that magic-users are usefull classes but they don’t really work on their own, instead being at their best in collaboration with warriors. They really blossom at the higher levels, though. (One interesting possibility can be for a group of warriors to have a shared high level magic-user played collectively by the players.)
The Adventuring section includes six pages of rules for activities other than combat and magic. The list covers things like travel & movement, ships & sailing, encumbrance, feats of strength, escaping danger, hiding & sneaking, swimming & drowning, climbing & failing, dealing with NPCs (with the required NPC reaction table) and henchmen, equipment & rewards, loyalty and morale, and requirements for character advancement. It ends, as always, with the 2006 edition notes and comments. I liked most of this. For instance consider the next: “Don’t dwell on the direction of the wind. The rules are intended to speed along the heroes, not bog them down!” That’s the spirit and I’m all for it.
I mentionned how creatures take up 45% of the gamebook. The way M&M handles them is also good and solid. The creatures have four basic traits (size, ferocity, cunning and mystique) from which are derived their modifiers. Other than that they have special abilities chosen from a list of 33 that includes things like fearsome (affects only the NPCs meaning that your adventurer may move into batle with tens of henchmen just to find himself alone facing the monster; very moody); mindless (devoid of mind, the creature is not affected by mind-related powers); or wallcrawling. Defeating a creature gives a variable number of Glory or Wisdom awards. The modular nature of the rules means that it’s fairly easy for the GM to either costumize the creatures provided by M&M or create his own.
M&M has a simple, well conceived and balanced system that provides a lot of alternatives and food for thought. There’s not much I would change that is not covered in the Notes & Comments as developments proposed in the 24 years that happened since the game was put on sale for the first time. In fact, there’s only one thing I would change that is not mentionned there: The usage of the d10 for initiative and strength. I understand the rationale for using the d10 in those circumstances (it must have to do with the balance of randomness) but I would drop the d10 alltogether and find a way of takling them with the d20.
Does M&M rules meet Olivier’s criteria? Yes, systemwise the game has a genuine old-school feel and it is totally coherent with Paul’s article. If there’s something I can default M&M at this level is the next: D&D was an outgrowth of minis wargaming. At the time – I am sure – there were several competing rulesets for this hobby. If I was Olivier I would have tried to get a real late 60s, early 70s minis wargame (other than Chainmal, of course) and worked the system from it. As far as I can tell that’s not what Olivier did but that’s understandable (I have no idea where I would get such an old piece of wargaming archaeology either). To be honest I can’t default Olivier on this, it’s just that... it would have been even more fun. In any case, Olivier’s final criterium was to design a “real, working, playable game”. I can only tell that he achieved it and did it very well. M&M is a game that I will play one day with my boy.
All in all, Mazes & Minotaurs deserves a solid 4 for its system.
SUBSTANCE III – THE FUN FACTOR
Mazes & Minotaurs belongs to what we may call light fantasy, pulp fantasy or B-series fantasy, a subgenre where we can find games such as the classics Original D&D and Tunels & Trolls, and the more recent additions Rune, Donjon, Barbarian Versus, Elfs, Risus with The Ring of Thieves and certainly many others I can’t recall – or know. I own all of these games except for Barbarian Versus and Elfs and I can confidently say that M&M is second to none, in fact if I wanted to play this subgenre I would likely pick Olivier’s offering.
In any case, I would like to:
* Read the book again: There are snippets that will bring me back to M&M even if I don’t intend to play it (more exactly the magic-user abilities, I love these). So, I’ll stick to 4.
* Be an occasional player: There’s no doubt about it. This is one of the games I will play with my children when the time comes. It deserves a 5.
* Be a campaign player: Eventually for a short campaign but there are better choices for that purpose. What can I say more? 3.
* Be an occasional game master: Same as above for occasional player. Make it a 5.
* Be a campaign game master: The simplicity of the game makes it a breeze to game master. I guess that 4 summs it up well.
I’m not off the mark if I give Mazes & Minotaurs a solid final 4 for Substance.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS IN THE SERIES
FS#00 Hero Wars (technically not part of the series, I’ve included it because the game falls into the scope of games I’m reviewing)
FS#01 RuneQuest 2
FS#02 RuneQuest 3
FS#03 Basic D&D
FS#04 D&D 3rd Edition
FS#05 Prince Valiant
FS#06 Exalted
FS#07 Rêve de Dragon
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