As Promised: A Post About Dungeons and Dragons

Here are some random thoughts about Dungeons and Dragons:

Lately I've been playing Baldur's gate on my computer. It is hard as fuck. (I know, I know, I use the f-word way too much-- but if you think this is bad, you should read my fiction.) I'd forgotten how easy it is to die as a first level D&D character. Aside from the difficulty it is a rather fun game. The graphics are a bit dated, and I find some of the game play mechanics a bit annoying, but the story, so far, is good. I would prefer if the combat unfolded in a more turn-based manner, like a traditional pencil and paper RPG, but then again, if wishes were horses.... I also recently received, as a late birthday present, a copy of The Temple of Elemental Evil for PC. My DM probably doesn't want me playing it because the campaign we're currently playing in our P&P game is Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and it's entirely possible that I might learn something by playing the computer game that will take away from the experience of the table game. Fortunately for him, it's buggy as hell and no longer has a place on my hard drive. Which is rather unfortunate, because the graphics are quite good, and the combat system is great; it's the first computer RPG to actually utilize the D&D 3.5 rules set, five foot steps, attacks of opportunity and all. It replicates the experience (in a good way) of an actual tabletop RPG better than any computer game I've yet played (of course, my experience with computer RPG's is limited-- I've always been an FPS and strategy guy). But, as I've said, the bugginess (new word?) takes away from the enjoyment of the game bigtime. Maybe I'll go back to it someday after our tabletop campaign is finally finished and someone has managed to fashion some better fixes for the bugs than the ones currently available. It does, however, show the potential for good computer RPG's if Wizards of the Coast and Atari are willing to pursue such a course. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there are no plans at the current time to do so.

That being said, I have to admit that computer RPG's for all the fun they offer can't compete with traditional games. Pencil and Paper RPG's are as much social event, as they are gaming experience. I've been in my current game with the contributors of this blog (and a few others who may contribute in the future) for a little over a year and a half now, and it's been a great deal of fun. Most of them I barely knew when we began, and now I consider them all to be very good friends. (Sometimes it's hard for us to get to the actual gaming when we get together: too many crude jokes to tell, too many stories of the shit we've had to put up with all week at work, etc....) I've got a lot of great memories from over the years of playing games, and all the time, I'm making more.

I first played D&D probably in junior high with my next door neighbor as DM. He was an incredibly creative guy who made up all of his campaign settings from scratch. When I was making up my character sheet I, on a whim, put the title "Prince" before my character's name, and voila, an entire new direction was added to the course of our campaign. Over the course of a few years the intrigues of the kingdom of Faurrell became an integral part of our gaming experience. This was way back in the day, early '80's, and the rules we used were these:




Eventually we got new books, and moved from Basic to Expert D&D, but never made the leap to AD&D.





We started buying TSR products willy-nilly, each one of my group of friends ending up with a different game. My brother was the gamemaster for Boot Hill an Old West RPG (and one of my favorites, truth be told). I bought Star Frontiers, and eventually, the expansion sets. Another friend had Top Secret. Then I got the original Middle Earth Role-Playing Game.






We rarely played anything but D&D though, partly because our DM was so kickass and none of the rest of us could run a game nearly as good as he could. Anyway, real life got in the way and I took an extended hiatus from gaming. Before joining my current game in early 2004 I hadn't played in about fifteen years (or more probably). Needless to say I know nearly nothing about the rules after all this time. Slowly, I'm learning again. Everything is D20 now. I don't even remember how the mechanics of D&D worked back in the Basic and Expert days, but I do remember that all of the other games were based solely on percentile dice. (With extensive damage tables- simplified for Star Frontiers by the introduction of Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space). Now, of course, I'm getting back into it. I'm still a little hazy on the intricacies of the D20 system, but I'm learning. (I like to joke that because I know less about the rules than anyone else in my gaming group, that makes me the coolest person in the room....) A few months ago I bought the D20 Modern Core Rulebook and have been thinking about putting together and running a campaign as the Game Master. It won't be anytime soon, because I simply don't have the time, nor do I know the rules well enough to run a game, but already I'm thinking about what I might like to include.

Today I added the DM guide to my Amazon shopping cart, and am thinking about buying the D&D Oriental Adventures guide as well.




One thing is for certain: any campaign I create will have to have fantasy elements, because in all likelihood my players will be members of my current group-- who love the fantasy setting. (Otherwise, I might have just bought Spycraft instead of the more versatile D20 Modern). Right now I'm thinking some sort of integration of modern elements with the Oriental Adventures campaign setting would be really great. Anyway....

So there are my random thoughts on gaming for today. Just in case you were wondering I got all of the cool images of vintage gaming books here.