The 3rd day of snow and cold has tightened its grip where I live. What happened to Spring which sprung 30 days past? As I eat some Skyr Icelandic Yogurt, my mind wanders to the Viking wastelands of yore. Come. Fill your drinking horns and join me as Rediscovered Realms tells tales of TSR’s 1981 minigame, “SAGA: Age of Heroes!”
I still have my childhood copy of Saga! They sold them at my local hobby shop, next to the model rockets. They were in an old revolving wire-frame bookcase. Loved them!
I should have known you would know the awesomness of Saga, JQ. In my youth, this game introduced me to the viking heroes and sagas of the old Norse. Several years ago, I bought a fresh copy from ebay and started playing again.
What amazes me about this game, as you point out, is the amount of effort put into it for a simple 3 dollar game. All of the characters, Jarls, Monsters, etc are taken directly from the Norse sagas. Even the swords and runes. No one would have been surprised if they had skimpped a bit, but this was clealy made by someone with pure love for the source material.
And the gameplay is awesome too. The magic spells, the gods, the runes, the awesome authentic map, etc. I even made my own additional counters with the extras tokens with further monsters and weapons culled from the sagas. And a more detailed combat table.
Thanks Kveto! I'm jealous that you got to play this as a kid. So cool that you modded it and that you still consider it one of your favorites. I bet I can guess one of your other favorite games . . . "Hungry, Hungry Hippogriffs", right?
Thanks Matt! I wasn't either. Cool product for sure. The small size and packaging reminds me of the travel games we used to have available as kids at roadstops, but obviously this wouldn't work . . . unless they made it into a magnetic gameboard and pieces!
By Odin I love this game! I wonder why TSR went with a historical setting for this and to not tie it into its DnD properties. Feel like they could have produced a Greyhawk setting version pretty easily.
Great question! I wonder if these mini games - and the other TSR traditional-style boardgames of the time - were meant to draw people of different interests into D&D. This game has more of a wargame feel, so perhaps that's the demographic they were targeting and why they kept the historical setting?
I still have my childhood copy of Saga! They sold them at my local hobby shop, next to the model rockets. They were in an old revolving wire-frame bookcase. Loved them!
Oh wow! That's cool, Patrick. Did they stock any of the other TSR minigames with Saga?
Not TSR, but I did get Car Wars, Ogre, and Barbarian Prince in that small form factor. Still have the first two!
😲
I should have known you would know the awesomness of Saga, JQ. In my youth, this game introduced me to the viking heroes and sagas of the old Norse. Several years ago, I bought a fresh copy from ebay and started playing again.
What amazes me about this game, as you point out, is the amount of effort put into it for a simple 3 dollar game. All of the characters, Jarls, Monsters, etc are taken directly from the Norse sagas. Even the swords and runes. No one would have been surprised if they had skimpped a bit, but this was clealy made by someone with pure love for the source material.
And the gameplay is awesome too. The magic spells, the gods, the runes, the awesome authentic map, etc. I even made my own additional counters with the extras tokens with further monsters and weapons culled from the sagas. And a more detailed combat table.
This is definitely one of my top 3 board games.
Great article as always.
Thanks Kveto! I'm jealous that you got to play this as a kid. So cool that you modded it and that you still consider it one of your favorites. I bet I can guess one of your other favorite games . . . "Hungry, Hungry Hippogriffs", right?
Great article - I wasn't familiar with TSR's Saga mini-game at all!
Thanks Matt! I wasn't either. Cool product for sure. The small size and packaging reminds me of the travel games we used to have available as kids at roadstops, but obviously this wouldn't work . . . unless they made it into a magnetic gameboard and pieces!
Outstanding!
Thanks for being such a regular visitor to Rediscovered Realms, Rick - Keep the Adventure Going Strong! ⚔
Thanks for the shout out!
By Odin I love this game! I wonder why TSR went with a historical setting for this and to not tie it into its DnD properties. Feel like they could have produced a Greyhawk setting version pretty easily.
Great question! I wonder if these mini games - and the other TSR traditional-style boardgames of the time - were meant to draw people of different interests into D&D. This game has more of a wargame feel, so perhaps that's the demographic they were targeting and why they kept the historical setting?
I know I missed it but we had a little place we would go to read them.