We all know the dubiousness of the words "I heard", but there is something I did hear and wondered if it was true. Someone told me that Magic the Gathering is based off the 90s game Master of Magic (which I have wasted thousands of hours of my life playing). Is that true?
Masters of Magic was published in 1994, Magic the Gathering was released in 1993.
Richard Garfield would have to have had contact with someone from Microprose or Simtex to get his hands on a beta or alpha copy to base his own game around it.
Magic was invented as a short game that could be played during downtime at Dungeons and Dragons sessions, and it took a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, which drew inspiration from Tolkien. Magic was also inspired in part by the works of Larry Niven, specifically the novella "The Magic Goes Away", which has a system of mana drawn from various locations to fuel magic, and features "the Warlock's Wheel", a spinning disk enchanted to draw all of the mana out of an area. The card Nevinyrral's Disk is an homage to this influence (Nevinyrral is "Larry Niven" backwards).
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Magic was invented as a short game that could be played during downtime at Dungeons and Dragons sessions, and it took a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons, which drew inspiration from Tolkien. Magic was also inspired in part by the works of Larry Niven, specifically the novella "The Magic Goes Away", which has a system of mana drawn from various locations to fuel magic, and features "the Warlock's Wheel", a spinning disk enchanted to draw all of the mana out of an area. The card Nevinyrral's Disk is an homage to this influence (Nevinyrral is "Larry Niven" backwards).
I always found it odd that it took its inspiration from D&D and Token. There always has been a huge push for elves for instance in magic but for some reason Dwarves, orcs, and several other common races for D&D and Token are kind of scarce in magic.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I always found it odd that it took its inspiration from D&D and Token. There always has been a huge push for elves for instance in magic but for some reason Dwarves, orcs, and several other common races for D&D and Token are kind of scarce in magic.
There were more of these in the early days though, so you can definitely see the influences there. Unlimited had two Dwarves and two Orcs, and Fallen Empires featured both tribes heavily. The issue is, thematically, all both tribes are Red, as well as Goblins, and Goblins are just more popular, which doesn't leave a lot of room for Dwarves and Orcs. Orcs, in particular, are extremely hard to differentiate from Goblins, apart from being slightly more serious and more menacing. Dwarves suffer from the fact that they're definitely Red in terms of locale, but not particularly Red in terms of temperament and habits. They'd really belong better in White, except for the whole "living in a Mountainside" thing which confuses the issue.
The other major D&D/Tolkein race that doesn't appear much in Magic is Halflings/Hobbits. There's some copyright issues there (I believe the Tolkein estate owns the rights to the term "Hobbit"). Additionally, they don't tend to make the most impressive of fantasy creatures. The Hobbit and LotR were notable in that they took a person from an unassuming background and thrust them into the spotlight. Magic's had a few attempts at Halfling-esque creatures, notably the Kithkin (dating back as early as Legends), but they never really took.
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Man.... I really wish Kithkin did take because I always found them to be a cool tribe. I totally get you on the identity crisis of goblins and dwarves both being red but especially with a harder push for multicolored cards in more recent years they could really start giving some multicolored tribe identities a bit more. Dwarves did see some reprinting with the vehicles of recent sets but as a whole dwarves have been incredibly scarce through magic history.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Richard Garfield would have to have had contact with someone from Microprose or Simtex to get his hands on a beta or alpha copy to base his own game around it.
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I always found it odd that it took its inspiration from D&D and Token. There always has been a huge push for elves for instance in magic but for some reason Dwarves, orcs, and several other common races for D&D and Token are kind of scarce in magic.
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There were more of these in the early days though, so you can definitely see the influences there. Unlimited had two Dwarves and two Orcs, and Fallen Empires featured both tribes heavily. The issue is, thematically, all both tribes are Red, as well as Goblins, and Goblins are just more popular, which doesn't leave a lot of room for Dwarves and Orcs. Orcs, in particular, are extremely hard to differentiate from Goblins, apart from being slightly more serious and more menacing. Dwarves suffer from the fact that they're definitely Red in terms of locale, but not particularly Red in terms of temperament and habits. They'd really belong better in White, except for the whole "living in a Mountainside" thing which confuses the issue.
The other major D&D/Tolkein race that doesn't appear much in Magic is Halflings/Hobbits. There's some copyright issues there (I believe the Tolkein estate owns the rights to the term "Hobbit"). Additionally, they don't tend to make the most impressive of fantasy creatures. The Hobbit and LotR were notable in that they took a person from an unassuming background and thrust them into the spotlight. Magic's had a few attempts at Halfling-esque creatures, notably the Kithkin (dating back as early as Legends), but they never really took.
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