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Dungeons and Dragons

Micom 2000

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Mar 6, 2004
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Manitoba North of 50 degrees Latitude
I've been a fan of Sci-Fi since the 50s, occasionally also delving into fantasy novels. After spending the last 6 months reading depressing books on economics, I did what I usually do and turned to "escape fiction". I dug out 2 old fantasy trilogies I'd enjoyed over 15 years ago, Dragonlance "Chronicles" and "Legends". After rereading them I noticed in the intro that games had developed out of them. While I've never been fond of "role-playing" games I did a check on Wiki and WOW a whole "Dungeon and Dragons" universe opened to my eyes. Something I had missed in my passage thru life.

From the huge exposure, I gather D&D was based on card games, not computer ones.
Were there "Dragonlance" computer games ? On what computers ?

Lawrence
 
ooh.. Actually yes :) I haven't come across them too much but there IS a Dragonlance series from SSI based on the same engine as the other gold box TSR based games. Essentially SSI teamed up with TSR to make their games follow the rule book for D&D and AD&D and historically have continued to do so over the years even up to the latest Pool of Radiance (Ruins of Myth Drannor*) series and Neverwinter Nights*.

* = not vintage but keeping the same tradition as original SSI games.

Look up the "gold box" series for some of the originals. I used to love playing them just because they followed the rules for the game we already played. You could play the game and when coming across an encounter you could just look up the animal and know if you're about to get slaughtered and should flee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Box for a lot of the games.

I used to love playing the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL. Amazing to get a few thousand people all running around and playing an SSI game at once. You could follow someone and make teams, trade items, etc. Quite fun for back in the day and non-BBS.
 
Age is relative but that could be the case. I'm not sure one could base an age category on BBS doors, and in early computing what age might play a game has probably changed since the 2 computers per household era. You're right I was young when the games were out although at the same time Dungeons and Dragons (and the Dragonlance book series) were both new to me despite being the original game being out for 15 years or so.

Now a days I see interesting or cool games and once in a blue moon I'll buy them once they're cheap but I'm having a lot of trouble finding the time and motivation to really sit down and play them. About the only games I will still play if a friend comes over with a computer are role-playing computer games despite a fairly repetitive game play of click click click then look to see if anything rare was dropped. I dunno.. maybe it just brings me back.

Maybe I'm too attention starved to follow thick plots or I get frustrated when losing, I'm not sure. Now I just like a game that lets me wander and fight on my own schedule.
 
Lawrence, see it from the lighter side: if you had been aware of these games 20-25 years ago, imagine all the other things you've accomplished that you would have procastinated to do. :p
 
When you talk about dungeons and dragons i come to think of adventure in catacombs with knight templars, i only remembered the end fight where you had to pass a fire fierce dragon.

Anyone remember the name could it have been Gabriel Knight?

JT
 
I was to busy reading all the "Conan" books in the lat 70's & early 80's LOL. :p:)
But I did get to the Dragon Lance series eventually, only liked the first couple of series though.
Never played the games as didn't have a pc till about 2001.
 
Oh yes, the old Dungeon and Dragon PC games. I can name you quite a few actually starting WAY back. But, for good D&D games now I have to suggest some great ones that stay as close as possible with the rules yet offers a great storyline. (Which is important to me)..

The Baldur's Gate Series and its later release Icewind Dale Someone else mentioned the Neverwinter Nights which is also great. In fact, there are websites that are actually dedicated to Neverwinter Nights Addons and Adventures to allow you to play those old school TSR modules. Pretty Nifty!
 
NEVER Too Old!

NEVER Too Old!

IMHO you are NEVER too old to enjoy the escape of a FRPG,be it a PC game or a Pen and Paper one.
My last gaming group was 5 adults and two teenagers (2 Teachers,Two Business Owners,1 Graphic Artist and 2 Students).It was great,getting together and having some FUN!
AOL's Neverwinter Nights really helped me through a tough time when I was dealing with a close friend's death.
The SSI games have all been a lot of fun over the years.I first played one on my C64.In recent times,I recollected them in PC format to replay(and renjoy!)They are a great reason to have Vintage equipment on hand.(Ambiance)

cgrape2
 
The cards came later, it was a tabletop RPG with books and pencils and homemade character sheets and everything. Before he passed away I found Gary Gygax's chat room and he was an alright guy, very enthusiastic about playing and "the story." I used to be a Dungeon Master (though you never really quit, you just apply it to real life).

Funny thing about Dragonlance, in the Spelljammer game (another tabletop rpg) all the "realms" were accessible except for the Dragonlance worlds, mostly because I think the stories were alredy all written and left nothing to the game but scripted adventures (boring).

I managed to put a spin on it, though; an evil wizard tricked the good guys into going through a gate that was flawed, and they lost all their innate abilities for short time (detect evil, detect magic, that sort of thing) and they got them all back right in the middle of the battle-- against the OTHER good guys of Krynn! They were all arrested.

I was an evil DM sometimes.
 
Lawrence, see it from the lighter side: if you had been aware of these games 20-25 years ago, imagine all the other things you've accomplished that you would have procastinated to do. :p

LOL! So true. :)

I loved adventure games but I really never got caught by the D+D bug. I guess the closet I came was battling my way through to (and finishing) the last level of "Hellfire Warrior", part of Automated Simulation's Dunjonquest series, on my System 80 (TRS-80 clone).

Like D+D you had "attributes" and tools/medicines/spells to use. Creatures were represented by block graphics, but the illustrated and very descriptive books accompanying the software made up for the poor graphic resolution.

It was all about suspending disbelief anyway, and provided you could get into the story, you had fun.

Tez
 
I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1977/78 and watched the development through all of the various game worlds (including the Dragonlance stuff), through the 2nd, 3rd, and now 4th editions of the game too. I still regularly run games of D&D and Empire of the Petal Throne. . .oddly enough, I never got into the computer based versions--I had/have way too much fun with the free-form format of pencil and paper.
 
I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1977/78 and watched the development through all of the various game worlds (including the Dragonlance stuff), through the 2nd, 3rd, and now 4th editions of the game too. I still regularly run games of D&D and Empire of the Petal Throne. . .oddly enough, I never got into the computer based versions--I had/have way too much fun with the free-form format of pencil and paper.

Wow! EPT? That's awesome :)
 
For retro D&D-style computer games, try Temple of Apshai and Telengard on an Apple II or C-64 emulator. Also try the Ultima series, for many platforms. I have a DOS converted collection of the games, but the early ones were best on Apple, Atari, and Commodore systems. There's also the Bard's Tale series, the first big POV games long before id Software. ;)

Most of the best D&D games on computer were not licensed D&D games, but act-alike rpgs. Many of the licensed titles weren't as good as the ones with the D&D serial numbers filed off.

I still run table-top, face to face games based on the original D&D rules from the mid 70s. Sometimes we even use the Chainmail combat system.

A free retro-style rules set can be downloaded in pdf at:
http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/whitebox.htm

Until a few months ago it was possible to buy the original D&D rules in pdf online, but the publisher pulled them a while ago, about the time the controversial new set of "4th edition" rules was released.
 
I just had one of those "if only" moments.
Back when I was little, I was in the school, "Go" club (ancient chinese/japanese game). The teacher who ran it started introducing various role playing games too & soon various forms of D&D took off. I just found the whole thing pretty tedious, all the dice rolling & adding up scores & keeping tabs on the attributes of the characters turned me off completely, meanwhile I spent hours & hours of free time musing on & programming in bits of "Go" to see if I could get a computer to play even a tiny bit with pretty well zero success. Now "if only" I'd been a bit more interested in computerising all the tedious bits of the D&D! :sigh:
 
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