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Heroic Fantasy is a computer-moderated, dungeon crawl play-by-mail game. It has been active since 1982 when it was published by Flying Buffalo. The initial edition involved nine dungeon levels. Flying Buffalo published subsequent editions due to challenging gameplay initially, eventually limiting the game to four dungeon levels with a fifth outdoors level where players can assemble an army and capture one or more castles. The game is open-ended; gameplay continues until players decide to stop.
In the game, players can create a party of up to fifteen Player character within certain limits. Various Character race are available for characters which can be fighters or , the latter having various spells at their disposal. Players can encounter non-player characters (NPCs), fight monsters for experience points, and collect treasure while their party progresses through the dungeon levels.
The game received various reviews in the 1980s, ranging from generally to very positive. In 2011, Heroic Fantasy won the Origins Award for Best Play by Mail or Correspondence Game. As of August 2021, it has been published by Rick Loomis PBM Games and is available for play by postal mail or email.
Once a player has chosen a game and receives an initial game setup, gameplay begins. This generally involves players filling out order sheets for a game (see example image) and sending them to the gaming company. The company processes the turns and returns the results to the player, who completes a subsequent order sheet. Diplomacy is also frequently an important—sometimes indispensable—part of gameplay.Townsend 1987 p. 29; Mouchet 2017 p. 11. The initial choice of a PBM game requires consideration as there is a wide array of possible roles to play, from pirates to space characters to "previously unknown creatures".John Kevin Loth III 1986 pp. 42–43. Close identification with a role typically increases a player's game satisfaction.
In the early 1970s, in the United States, Rick Loomis, of Flying Buffalo Inc., began a number of multi-player play-by-mail games;Loomis 2013. p. 38. these included games such as Nuclear Destruction, which launched in 1970.Flying Buffalo 2020. This began the professional PBM industry in the United States.Mclain 1993. Professional game moderation started in 1971 at Flying Buffalo which later added games such as Battleplan, Starweb, and others, which by the late 1980s were all computer moderated.
For approximately five years, Flying Buffalo was the single dominant company in the US PBM industry until Schubel & Son entered the field in roughly 1976 with the human-moderated Tribes of Crane. Schubel & Son introduced fee structure innovations which allowed players to pay for additional options or special actions outside of the rules. For players with larger bankrolls, this provided advantages and the ability to game the system. The next big entrant was Superior Simulations with its game Empyrean Challenge in 1978. Reviewer Jim Townsend asserted that it was "the most complex game system on Earth" with some large position turn results 1,000 pages in length.
In the early 1980s, the field of PBM players was growing.Harvey 1984. p. 21. Individual PBM game moderators were plentiful in 1980.The Space Gamer 1980. p. 13. However, the PBM industry in 1980 was still nascent: there were still only two sizable commercial PBM companies, and only a few small ones.Popolizio, Leblanc, and Popolizio 1990. p. 8. The most popular games of 1980 were Starweb and Tribes of Crane. It was in this environment that Flying Buffalo launched Heroic Fantasy.
In the 1980s, players negotiated a nine-story maze. In the 1990s, Flying Buffalo Inc. programmed two subsequent editions with the following rationale:
After the August 4, 2021 sale of Flying Buffalo Inc. to Webbed Sphere,Flying Buffalo Inc. 2021. the PBM games—which were not included in the sale—continued under a new company: Rick Loomis PBM Games.Crompton 2021. p. 1. The company, run by Loomis' sisters and their PBM computer expert, continues to offer Heroic Fantasy by postal mail and email as of August 2021 with one, two, and four week turn rates and a "solo" variant where one player can explore the dungeon without other player characters.Rick Loomis PBM 2021. p. 2.
While negotiating mazes, players have various spells available for use, including "blast", "sleep", and "fireball". Players can find different types of treasure in the mazes, to include four types of : healing, strength, poison, and Stygean, the latter which adds "ten to the character's Constitution regardless of its current value".Townsend 1987. p. 25. According to Jim Townsend there is also a fifth—a cloning potion—which replicates a character that is "VERY rare". Players can also find magical items such as elf cloaks, fairy rings, amulets, and Thundereggs, which have various properties and effects, as well as basic treasure such as gold rings, coins, and jewels, which provide only experience points.
While exploring mazes, players can encounter other player characters as well as monsters run by the computer, or non player characters (NPCs), with the latter being more prevalent. According to Jim Townsend, NPCs belong to clans, and actions taken against one are viewed similarly by other NPCs in the same clan (e.g., an attack against one clan NPC will cause other clan NPCs to attack a player's party on sight later).Townsend 1987. p. 26.
A D Young reviewed the game in the October 1983 issue of White Dwarf, stating that " Heroic Fantasy is an excellent game for beginners. It does not involve very much diplomacy (although it can, if one runs into groups of other players), and the rescue-party rule makes it a game you can enjoy for a longtime."Young 1983. p. 29. Graham Masters Jr. also noted the latter theme in the Sep–Oct 1982 issue of Computer Gaming World, stating that " HF allows a player whose group has been severely weakened through the death of several characters to send in a "rescue" party."Masters 1982. p. 11.
Stewart Wieck reviewed Heroic Fantasy in White Wolf #10 (1988), rating it a 3 out of 10 and stated that " Heroic Fantasy can be recommended for beginners to get a feeling for PBM gaming, but in all the game is not very satisfying."
Heroic Fantasy won the Origins Award for Best Play by Mail or Correspondence Game of 2011.GAMA 2013.
History
The earliest play-by-mail games developed as a way for geographically separated gamers to compete with each other using postal mail. Chess and Go are among the oldest examples of this.McLain 1993 In these two-player games, players sent moves directly to each other. Multi-player games emerged later: Diplomacy is an early example of this type, emerging in 1963, in which a central game master manages the game, receiving moves and publishing adjudications.Babcock 2013. p. 16. According to Shannon Appelcline, there was some PBM play in the 1960s, but not much.Appelcline 2014. loc. 2353. For example, some wargamers began playing Stalingrad by mail in this period.
Publication history
The game became available for play in March 1982.Loomis 1982. p. 38. By November 1982, it had over 400 players.Loomis 1982. p. 41. By the late 1980s, it was computer moderated. Heroic Fantasy was the third PBM game from Flying Buffalo, which the company also soon converted into a turn-based computer game available on a commercial network known as "TheSource".Appelcline 2011. p. 35.
In the first two versions, we told the players there was going to be nine levels to the game, and the object was to go through all nine levels and exit. Players exiting from the ninth level would be given wall plaques as a prize. We never actually finished programming the lower levels, because only a couple people ever got as far as the 6th level, and after eight years only a half dozen are playing in the 5th level. We decided that maybe nine levels was too much.Flying Buffalo Inc. 1990.
The company reduced the number of dungeon levels to four, with players then exiting the dungeon to adventure in an outside environment, "recruiting an army, until you find a castle to invade". Rick Loomis described some of the changes from the first version of Heroic Fantasy in a 1990 edition of Flying Buffalo Quarterly, for example, stating that bows and crossbows had been introduced allowing players to shoot across rooms. Another addition was the "store" where players could purchase items and revive deceased characters (for a hefty price).Loomis 1990. p. 2. By 1991, the first two dungeon levels of the new version were active and Flying Buffalo was playtesting Level 3 and programming Level 4.Loomis 1991. p. 2.
Gameplay
Heroic Fantasy is a game in which the players lead a team of fantasy characters. At the outset, players choose a party of up to fifteen Player character using one hundred points, which can be used to maximize the size of the party or choose a smaller party of stronger characters. Various options are available when choosing characters including races such as dwarves, giants, fairies, leprechauns, and ; and types such as or fighters. There is no final object of the game or way to win; the purpose of the game is to advance by negotiating challenging mazes, defeating monsters, and collecting treasure and experience points.Townsend 1987. p. 24. According to Michael A. Stackpole in 1985, the second level was very challenging while the setting for level three was outdoors with "new wanderers" and new spells.Stackpole 1982. He noted that level four was rife with undead creatures. Of level five, Stackpole stated it was "very interesting" with new features and maps that "force characters to face danger whether they want to or not". After capturing a castle on the fifth, outside level, players can retire, defend their castle, or look for more to capture.
Reception
W. G. Armintrout reviewed Heroic Fantasy in the November 1982 issue of The Space Gamer.Armintrout 1982. pp. 2–5. Armintrout commented that " Heroic Fantasy is a fun game of dungeon delving, and I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys the insides of underground mazes. There are a lot of options, and a lot of player-vs.-player interaction. The speech orders add a distinct role-playing dimension." In the April 1983 issue of Dragon, Michael Gray stated "This is Flying Buffalo’s science fiction play-by-mail game of conquest, trade, exploration and diplomacy. And it's nothing short of a masterpiece!"Gray 1983. p. 35.
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Categories: 20th-century Role-playing Games, 21st-century Role-playing Games, American Games, American Role-playing Games, Dungeon Crawler Board Games, Dungeon Management Games, Fantasy Role-playing Games, Flying Buffalo Games, Graphical Muds, Heroic Fantasy, Mud Games, Multi-user Dungeon, Multiplayer Games, Origins Award Winners, Play-by-mail Games, Role-playing Games Introduced In 1982, Role-playing Games Introduced In The 1980s, Strategy Games, Sword And Sorcery, Tabletop Games
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