Monday, September 2, 2013

Champions of Krynn: No Bed of Roses

Karl's this 60-year-old guy and you're a silver dragon who looks like a gorgeous young elven maiden. It's Karl who would be embarrassed if the secret were revealed?

To recap the plot of the game, the War of the Lance has recently ended in victory for the good guys, but my party is among a group of Solamnic knights who have found evidence of a resurgence of evil in the northwest part of Ansalon. It seems that someone named Myrtani has re-discovered the methods necessary to corrupt good dragon eggs into Draconians and is raising an army. His ultimate aims are unknown, but he has a Dragonlance (a powerful weapon that can kill dragons) and one of his lieutenants is a possibly-undead fallen knight named Sir Lebaum. At the close of the last posting, I had been sent to an ogre base to see about an alliance between the good armies and the ogre king.

Yes, I actually take the time to use Adobe's text box tools to "check" the check boxes in the journal.

I arrived at the ogre base in the midst of a civil war. The ogre king, Gravnak, was contending with an upstart, Morog, who had hired a band of Draconian assassins to settle the conflict. As I explored the base, I ran into supporters of both contenders; those that supported Morog generally assumed that I was with the assassins and pointed me to their quarters.

Another role-playing choice. Do we slaughter the relatively defenseless ogre just because he's on the side of our enemy?

An encounter with an aged ogre led me to the locations where I could kill the Draconians and collect evidence implicating Morog. The Draconian battle gave me my first taste of combat with an Aurak Draconian, and I already hate them. You can't target them from a distance, they cast spells, they have breath and energy attacks that are not disruptable, and they come back to life twice after you've killed them. On their second resurrections, after a few rounds have passed, they explode into fireballs.

To be fair, I was making liberal use of my own fireballs.

After a long combat that nearly killed my party, I defeated the assassins. In another room, I killed some of Morog's allies and found documents implicating Morog. At the culmination of the map, I brought the evidence to a conference room where Morog and Gravnak were arguing.


The final battle, with half of the ogres fighting on my side, was relatively simple, but it made me remember how irksome it is to have a lot of allies on your side. You have to watch them dither around, trying to find a route to the enemy, for what seems like an eternity.

And most of them couldn't even get around me to reach the opposing side.

When I was done, King Gravnak ushered me into his office and offered an alliance to help defeat Myrtani. He said he'd come to my aid if I attacked Myrtani's base in Kernen.

I love the idea that a guy who wanders around in a loincloth has an "office" and speaks perfect English.

The next quest took me to an outpost of the Knights of Solamnia, from which a messenger had gone missing. From the moment I arrived, it was clear something squirrely was going on. The commandant refused to let me see the messenger, and every street had guard checkpoints where the guards demanded I leave. People stared at me in the street and guards kept stopping and checking up on me.

I KNEW it.

At last, I ran into a man wearing a tattered guard's uniform who told me what I already suspected: Draconians had conquered the outpost and imprisoned the real guards. The commandant was a Sivak Draconian (capable of altering their appearance), and most of the "guards" were soldiers of the enemy. The guard gave me a map indicating where the real guards were being held, including a secret door into the prison.


The guards in the prison refused to help until I released their children, being held hostage in one of the houses in the north. After slaughtering a secluded guard checkpoint, I freed the children, returned to the guards, freed them, and attacked the commandant in his office.

No one named "Jadefang" is good news.

The Draconian "commandant" wasn't very hard--he just had fighters with him--but in the room beyond, "Jadefang" turned out to be a green dragon, capable of breathing some heavy-damage poison. Fortunately, by this time my fighters were doing better with their THAC0s, and I was able to take him down in a single round. Oddly, the wizard who supposedly ran into this room never showed up in battle.


With the dragon slain, the real guards recovered control of the outpost. The game provided some nice touches to show the player effecting permanent change on the game world.


Overall, I liked the role-playing opportunities in this area. I could have just charged in swinging, attacking every guard post, like I did in the buccaneer base in Pool of Radiance, but I took the time to win the map through the more plot-heavy "stealth" method. As we've seen in other games like Dragon Wars, good role-playing choices aren't always about dialogue or single encounters, but rather about general approaches to maps and quests.

When I returned to the knights' outpost, I found it in near-ruins. Myrtani and his forces had led an attack on the place in my absence, and they had kidnapped Sir Karl. Maya was beside herself. Vowing to reclaim him, she asked if I would go with her to Neraka and help with the rescue.

What kind of player says "no" here?

While exploring Neraka, Maya never showed up in my party list, but she was always there at my back when combat began. The first such combat made clear what had been relatively obvious since Throtl: Maya was a silver dragon.

I'm just saying I wouldn't necessarily have revealed this secret for centipedes and rats.

Having her in the party was pretty useful. She had a high-level "Magic Missile" attack, did fantastic melee damage, and if I could get out of her way, her breath attack was devastating. In contrast to the NPC spellcasters in Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds, who didn't bother to check if any of the party members would be affected by their lightning bolts, fireballs, and cones of cold, Maya never breathed unless none of my characters were in the path.

Maya takes out a whole line of Draconians.

Neraka had two maps: a maze-like city and an underground prison. In the twisty passages of the city, I started to encounter desperate prisoners fleeing from Draconian patrols, and it was clear that the "Prison Lord" was running a Most Dangerous Game in the city. I defeated another green dragon in one of the city's rooms and plenty of groups of Draconians.

Bastards. I haven't lost The Game in months.

Finally arriving at the stairs down, I found a bloodied Sir Karl climbing up. He entreated me to rescue the prisoners below before dying. His last words were "remember me to Maya," apparently oblivious to the fact that Maya was right there with me. Grief-stricken, Maya collected his body and flew off.


The prison was full of more Draconians and guards, culminating in a battle with the Prison Lord, who was apparently Mola Ram:

"Drop them, Dr. Jones! They will be found. You won't!"

"Hold Person" made this battle relatively easy. After I defeated him, I explored the rest of the map and found one of the Heroes of the Lance from the books, Tanis, rescuing slaves. I joined him in defeating the rest of the enemy forces and freeing the captives.

I'll forgive you if you decide not to go with "Squirrel."

There were multiple rooms in the prisons in which slaves were being tortured, fed to animals, and suffering other unpleasantness. Every time I freed them, I got a special experience reward.

Note that there's no option to "Watch and Laugh."

In one of the cells, apparently occupied by Karl before his escape, I found a dead guard, a letter to Maya, and the silver rose that I'd obtained for him in Jelek. I admit this was a little sad.


There was a battle with two green dragons on the way out, but by now, killing dragons is basically a Tuesday afternoon.

Lots more notes:

  • I keep forgetting to mention the "area" maps. Mostly, I don't use them. They give you a sense of the surrounding terrain, but they don't track your own progress and they represent doors as walls. Theoretically, you can move via the maps instead of first-person view, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a reason why I would want to. Perhaps if I wasn't making my own maps. 


  • I'm trying to make greater use of bows in combat when it makes sense. However, I keep forgetting to un-equip them and re-equip melee weapons when necessary. I wish there was a faster way to do this.

&#$*&(@!

  • I thought I remembered that in Curse of the Azure Bonds, there was a "Center" command that you could use when targeting spells like "Fireball" so you could see which people on the screen would be affected. This command doesn't exist in this game, and I keep accidentally catching a character or two in the blast radius.
  • Dragons in this game are awfully small. They only take up two squares, suggesting they're about the size of two humans or a single ogre. In Curse and Pool, they took up four squares.
  • The game kept throwing centipedes and rats at me in Neraka. I'm not sure why. These enemies have an AC of 9, only 2 hit points, and they're so low-level that my fighters can wipe out 4 or 5 at once with the "sweep" attack. They were utterly unchallenging, and their presence was a bit of a mystery.
  • Here's a map of Neraka below. The Gold Box games always feature relentlessly bland first-person views of city streets and corridors, but usually the geography makes some sense. You can discern avenues, buildings, parks, and such. On this map, on the other hand, I have no idea what's going on. What would this twisty maze of corridors and rooms even look like in a "city"? Some kind of shanty town?


  • Intelligent enemies frequently "surrender" when I've killed most of their colleagues. I've always wondered what the game imagines that I do with them. Tie them up? Slit their throats? Accept their words of honor that they'll stay out of the battles to come?
  • But surrendering is far more preferable to the alternative: fleeing. There's nothing more annoying than an enemy who "flees in panic." He inevitably gets hung up in some corner, and I've got to chase him down. Since my characters are usually laden with equipment and money and enemies aren't, it takes me three or four rounds to catch up with them.

Stupid bat couldn't have just surrendered.

  • Still can't get enough of this:


  • I didn't realize until just before I wrapped up this entry that there's a vault, temple, and bar in every outpost. You access them from a "Next" menu option that I repeatedly overlooked. The vault helps a lot in storing my steel pieces and preventing me from being overweight.
  • Tavern tales in the outpost bars refer to recent events. For instance, when I returned from Neraka, they talked about the freeing of the slaves and the death of Sir Karl.
  • I'm finding the combats a little easier, but still challenging, now that I've increased a few levels and have both "Fireball" and "Lightning Bolt."

This never gets old.

The commandant who has replaced Karl has directed me to join the forces of good in an assault on the city of Sanction. Numerous journal entries and rumors suggest that Sanction is Myrtani's base of operations, that he took the Dragonlance there, and that Sir Lebaum is also headquartered there. For some reason, according to a couple of journal entries, Lebaum has bodies regularly delivered to him and prefers that their bones be intact. I can't wait to see what his secret is.

I don't even want to know who this note is directed to.

66 comments:

  1. "Dragons in this game are awfully small. They only take up two squares,"

    They are just hatchlings. Wait till you meet their parents...


    Neraka: IIRC it was war ruined in the War of the Lance, so I guess that makes the mess more sensible.

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    1. Dragons are much more common in Dragonlance, and many of them are smaller then the FR ones. In D&D Dragons grow with age, and get more powerful.

      I also don't think that Dragonlances are the only way to kill them; They killed some Blue ones in the books by dropping a tower on them or somesuch. Just that they level the playing field somewhat.

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    2. Actually, I've heard part of the reason Dragonlance exists is someone noticed that TSR was putting out lots and lots of stuff about dungeons, but pretty much nothing about dragons, so yeah, they wanted to change that.

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  2. Personally, I have always liked the storyline about Maya and Sir Karl. This, I felt, was when the Gold-Box games went from light story combat simulators to an engine that could be used to tell a compelling and interesting storyline and make you actually feel like you were part of the roleplaying experience.

    And, would Sir Karl really be embarrassed because he was courting a young elvish maiden? Because, young to an elf is...what...160 years? I realize she isn't really an elf, but young for a dragon is still pretty old.

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    1. The embarrassment comes from... well... Maya being a dragon and all that.

      Y'know... like what we hear about hormonally charged teenage shepherds with sheep? Aristocratic ladies riding barebacked on their massive stallions into the wilds? No?

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    2. If sheep were capable of transforming into gorgeous, intelligent, powerful young women, I wouldn't think any less of Welshmen.

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    3. I'm sure the Welshmen (and some animal-loving enthusiasts) wouldn't think any less of sheep if they were incapable of transforming into gorgeous, intelligent, powerful young women. Since it most probably lowers the sheep-lovers' chances with them exponentially if they could.

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    4. Just saying, years later, that it is a pretty retreaded thing--the Knight and Dragon who defeated Takhisis the first time fell in love, and it was taboo, and no one was pleased. Later, another dragon fell in love with a mortal, and Fizban....Paladine was not too pleased.

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  3. For the missing Center command, try pressing spacebar or some other unmarked keys to trigger it. I had the same problem while playing Silver Blades, but I don't remember which key it was exactly, other than the fact that I solved it.

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    1. That works! That's going to save me a lot of time counting spaces. THANK you!

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  4. You haven't talked about leveling characters. I'm guessing there's a central trainer in the outpost like other Gold Box games.

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    1. Yes, I didn't mention that. There are trainers in the outposts, and leveling up is free.

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  5. Are there any really big battles here? One thing I especially like about PoR and CotAB is the massive battles. Even at relatively low level. It's fun battling a hundred goblins at the same time.

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    1. I haven't come across any yet, and I agree that it's too bad. I miss the epically-large battles against moderate-level enemies that took 10 or 12 rounds. In this game, you're usually matched in size and power, and victory comes down to who casts the first fireball or "Hold Person."

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Yes, there is a trainer in every outposts, and there will be bigger dragons, not just two square.

    There are quiet a bit big combat. But if your mages come first, and they don't get hit, and you can release few fireballs, they are easy. Just try to go and see the most eastern city. But, not frequently like in Pool of Radience. Against draconians, i usually use stinking cloud. Sometimes it effects them (nausea makes the hit you harder too), but if don't it can be useful for tactical purposes, they usually try not to step in it. Sometimes silence works too. I am curious maybe dispel magic get rid off the fire shield. Prot from fire, ofcourse help.

    About, the cities, there are buildings yes, one time when i played it through, i made the map, coloring the houses and the outside area, just use your imagination. You can see "sky" outside. (This maybe incorrect, cause i play this game on C64 emulator, nostalgy forever.)

    If I remember correctly when they are surrender, you get the xp for them, and the items, when they flee, you don't.

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  8. The city is like that because it was set up as a gigantic maze for prisoners to wander through and eventually die in. As a sick joke. The city was altered for this purpose.

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  9. Cruising around with Maya was a lot of fun, especially after Alias and Dragonbait were such let downs.

    I remember many random encounters with mobats that were never threatening but always niggling and time consuming which resulted in a gameplay sequence that went something like:

    Encounter mobats -> Attempt rest -> Interrupted by mobats -> Successfully rest -> Move three spaces -> Encounter mobats...

    Backstabbing is absolutely the most enjoyable part of combat. I think you can do quintuple damage in the higher level gold box adventures. It was something I really missed in the Infinity Engine games.

    I don't use bows except in difficult combats, for the reason you mention. Too much work swapping them in and out.

    I'd love it if a reputable company kickstarter'd faithful gold box remakes, preferably with little more than graphical and interface improvements.

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    1. I'm also surprised that no one has had a go at a remake. Mind you, I don't think any SSI games are on GOG, so maybe they are in legal limbo.

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    2. The mobats were annoying but not overly so. I just ran through the caverns and didn't bother to try to rest.

      The Infinity Engine games did feature backstabbing, with the added benefit that you could "chunk" your enemy (as senseless as that is), but I agree it wasn't as good. It was too hard to get into position, and little things could trigger the thief suddenly becoming detected.

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    3. I thought backstabbing was easier in the IE games; all your Thief needed was a suitable weapon, a suitable target and being either stealthed or invsisble, with no need for another character to set up the backstab. Also, enemy thieves could easier backstab you.

      For those wanting more Gold Box adventures, you should really check out FRUA. Lots of good modules to play.

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    4. Except that the enemies had to be facing a very specific direction, and sometimes it was hard to get "behind" them without accidentally touching them, and if you forgot to turn off the AI, the thief would suddenly start attacking before you could get him into position. And then if you missed, you were a lone thief standing there with your dagger in your hand while some royally pissed-off monster started swinging at you.

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    5. No, facing actually does not matter in the IE games. The devs wanted to implement it, but I think it was too difficult to program the computer controled thieves to do it. And it's also the reason why retreating to a corner to protect your back when you see enemy thieves go invisible won't help.
      Personally I never play with AI on, but I make it a rule for my thief to stand behind their victim since it does look rather silly to backstab from the front.
      Also, your thief should always have an escape plan and/or a spell or potion of invisibility, to avoid the situation you describe. In the GB and IE games I always give my thief the first pair of Speed Boots to increase his mobility.

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    6. Are you absolutely sure about the facing thing? It's been a few years since I played any, but I can remember spending a lot of time maneuvering my thief BEHIND the enemy and then getting frustrated when he turned. I can also remember going for a backstab and having it turn into just a regular attack because (I thought) I wasn't really behind him.

      The thief's guides notes on GameFAQs say that "you actually DO have to be relatively behind your enemy before a backstab registers" (though it suggests that this wasn't true in un-patched BG1). And the BGII manual says "Note that in order to backstab someone, the thief must be standing behind the target."

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    7. Fighting in the IE games featured the somewhat unsatisfactory 'never be in melee combat' technique against most things, or the more extreme 'never be visible' technique against the various gatling archers and spellcasters.

      I try to play with no combat-death reloads, which means I can't really risk strategies that involve saving throws or successful attack rolls.

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    8. Come to think of it, it is quite possible that the facing rules only apply to player characters and not NPCs.
      Also the patch for Tales of the Sword Coast included this change:
      "The "which-way-am-I-facing" code has been changed affecting Thief backstabbing."
      So I guess originally there was no facing rules, and then the patch introduced facing rule for backstabbing, but only for player characters.
      And along the way I guess I forgot _why_ I always placed my thief behind their victim.

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    9. I know what you mean, Tristan, but I have to say that the most satisfying game of BG I ever played was when I decided to deny myself all missile weapons. It forced me to do a much more thorough job with spells, actually USE all those wands, and generally approach the battles in a more tactical way. I'm sure I died a lot more than usual, though.

      Petrus, I agree that *NPCs* never seem to have that "behind the back" restriction. In places where I knew there were shadow thieves hiding, I'd try to keep my party in motion, constantly changing directions, but it never worked.

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    10. NPC thieves could definitely frontstab you. One from a particular band of NPCs in Waukeen's Promenade was an especially irritating proponent of the frontstab chunk. Poor Jaheira.

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    11. Chet, something I would be interested to see you include in your difficulty rating is a 'reload count'. Don't include glitches or crashes or restarts or content exploration eg 'I wonder if the inside of the giant shark is explorable'.

      This would let your readers 'challenge' your reload count. Perhaps you could have an honesty based competition where people can submit their highest scores.

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    12. If I were to play 'no-bows BG' I think my party composition would be 1 fighter, 1 cleric, 1 druid, 3 mage.

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    13. Tristan, that's a really good idea on the "reload count." I wish you'd mentioned it years ago. It's too late for this game, but I'll try to keep track from here on.

      On your BG party, I think that would work well. GIve the fighter all the best stuff, prioritizing a low AC, but also give him any resistance items so you can cast spells around him without worrying so much. Send him ahead and let the enemies swarm him, keep your mages in the back casting, your druid summoning animal allies, and your cleric dashing in, healing, and dashing out.

      It's difficult to assemble such a party with the game's NPCs, though; you'd have to do that multi-player trick or live with other combinations until you could find everyone.

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    14. One of the Icewind Dale games or expansion packs also included a option to use a version of the 3rd edition sneak attack instead of the 2nd edition backstab, as it was easier to pull off, further making any blanket statement about IE games and sneak attack pointless.

      I never bothered with sneak attack as facing was too much of a pain. Honestly, Imoen is only in my party for traps and roleplay as backstab is too hard to figure out.

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    15. Dual Imoen to mage, Edwin, Xzar (montaron dies uhh...valiantly), Khalid & Jaheira, Branwen. The PC replaces whichever you want. I think that gives you everyone after a few screens. After a few levels you can start tailoring your party with better NPCs. Might take Kagain for his 20 Con.

      I agree with your strategy. Also BG1 doesn't have the summon limit, so you can use hordes of low level critters to good effect.

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    16. I've heard that, but I need someone to find traps if I want to go into a lot of places, and someone to unlock chests. Also I'm playing straight good, so a lot of the NPCs you mention would attack me after a while.

      I've got Imoen, that Paladin guy, Khalid, Jaheria, the cleric who was turned to stone, and myself as a mage, so I don't need another mage (Bad planning, I know. I should have gone melee fighter, dueled Imoen to mage and gotten that ranger as an archer)

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  10. Haha, I thought it was only Japanese games that would shamelessly trace famous actors and characters from movies and include them in their games. I wonder if any other famous characters from movies appear in this or other Gold Box games.

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    1. I can't say for SURE that's what they did, but he sure does look similar.

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    2. Here's a great page on the history of tracing in video games, where illustrators just take a famous actor or character in a movie, trace over the pic and slap it into their game, like Mola Ram's appearing in CoK. Turns out there were plenty of western devs that did this too, like one who copied Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and slapped him on a game cover.

      http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

      Richard Garriott commented that when they were in talks to get Ultima IV published in Japan with Falcom (a company that makes JRPGs), they saw that Falcom had made copies of Denis Loubet's manual illustrations and put them in an unrelated Falcom game (Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu). During a presentation to Garriott himself they saw all the ripped off artwork, the negotiations were cancelled and there ended up being some legal settlement (as well as no involvement from Falcom in the eventual publishing of the game).

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    3. Ha. I remember catching the Galdregon's Domain one, but I had no idea this was so popular.

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  11. "There was a battle with two green dragons on the way out, but by now, killing dragons is basically a Tuesday afternoon."

    M. Bison approves this sentiment.

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    1. Didn't know the CRPG addict is a Moody Blues fan. Wonderful!

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    2. Raul Julia was the only good reason to watch that crappy movie. Dear God it was so horrible. Just typing this is giving me horrible flashbacks.

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    3. This is literally the most confusing thread I've ever read. I have no idea how my quote relates to my high school French teacher, or how that relates to the Moody Blues, or how that relates to Raul Julia. I suppose I could try to Google it, but I'd rather just leave it a mystery.

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    4. Tuesday Afternoon is a Moody Blues song from the album Days of Futures Past - 1967. It was a hit along with "Nights in White Satin".

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    5. It was also one of the first (_the_ first?) albums to combine rock and classical music.

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    6. And Raul Julia had nothing to do with M. Bison. It never happened. End of story.

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  12. The solution for annoying monster attacks, that every map (place) usually has a fixed number of random encounter patrol (monsters attack!), in SSI games. There are ofcourse exceptions. Just like in Throtl, six if i remember correctly (they reset when you reenter the city). These are not random, just what order do you meet with them. On some maps, beside random encounters, you need to clear the fixed ones. After that the map is *cleared*.

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    1. Yes, some maps I just "look" in place until they stop coming. That way, I don't have to wonder if I'm going to get attacked with every step down the hallway.

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  13. The centipedes are poisonious. I have had characters killed by them before. The rats are just annoying.

    I used bows constantly myself. Arrow supply was easy, but I agree, changing weapons is a cumbersone process. A quick draw feature would have helped.

    The Maya subplot seems useless. It is nice to have a dragon on your side, but its momentary at best. I suppose it would unbalance the game?

    Sir Karl; As much as I hate to see him killed had no personel management skills whatsoever. Unfortunately, it is not the last we will see of him.

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    1. Really? I'm not sure the centipedes ever even hit me, let alone poisoned me. I guess that does ramp up their ability, but they offer paltry experience, so it's clear the game didn't expect them to be hard.

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  14. This made me dig up this old Grognardia link on Dragonlance, which actually sums up why I never cared for it, or most of the established settings, if we get right down to it.

    http://grognardia.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/how-dragonlance-ruined-everything.html

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    1. Everything I know about the Dragonlance setting has been from this one game, but I am generally uncomfortable with games that co-exist in a world with fixed narratives in the form of books and movies. You have to do some extremely creative stuff to make the player feel that his actions actually matter. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic did this by setting things so far in the past that the effects on the universe of the films would be undetectable no matter what happened. (Though I understand the EU later screwed this up.) Another approach is to make the player's portion of the world fairly low-key--important to him and the people around him, but not world-changing--as in Pool of Radiance or the average orc-infested dungeon module.

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    2. I never bothered to read any of the post War of the Lance books, so for me it was never a problem, since the games take place some years after.

      And if it wasn't for the Dragonlance books we wouldn't have had the best (IMO, at least) of the Gold Box series, and some of the best CRPGs ever. Although who knows what SSI could have done with a GB series set in a more exotic/original campaign world like Dark Sun or Planescape?

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    3. Very true about the Pool of Radiance approach. It felt like you could take the whole region, find/replace some names, and have it work in any setting. Pretty much the same way the early D&D modules worked.

      A person not invested in the setting could enjoy it, and all but the most die-hard setting fans would find their main world left mostly untouched.

      Petrus, I remember the Dark Sun games being a sort of middle-ground between the Gold Box and Infinity games, so I'd say you got at least one of those. I never played the Planescape game that got made, so I can't comment on that one.

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    4. @Menigal - It's probably impossible not to care about it (if you're into CRPGs) as, how your linked article accurately put it, the Dragonlance modules was what made modern RPGs are like today - being cast into a set role (Mass Effect), having sequels taking into consideration of a single canonical prequel ending (KOTOR 2) -even if it had several- and being railroaded (Dragon Age) endlessly.

      It more or less ruined AND defined it at the same time.

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  15. I don't think anyone has mentioned this explicitly, so: I appreciate the Queen references.

    Despite the various issues, this sounds like a very fun game. I hope GOG gets to release the Gold Box games one day...

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    1. Thanks. I was wondering if anyone noticed.

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    2. Duskfire did, I didn't but would have when I read your next post.

      Also, does anyone else find it hilarious that some of Queens best work was done for the Highlander sound track?

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  16. Just found your blog, it's fantastic! I was wondering if you had thought about the game Neuromancer? It's been 20 years but I loved it as a kid, I can't remember if it's an RPG exactly though.

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    1. The Trickster did a pretty long blog spot on his blog: http://advgamer.blogspot.com/

      His blog was inspired by this one. He's doing adventure games instead of RPGs. Took him quite a long time (and quite a few posts) to get through Neuromancer, so it's pretty detailed.

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    2. Hello, Anonymous. Welcome to the blog. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

      I'm afraid I designated Neuromancer a non-RPG, so it wasn't on my list.

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  17. Are the vaults in the various outposts linked, or do you have to go back to whatever outpost you left something in to retrieve your stuff?

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    1. Good question. The vaults are linked, as nonsensical as that is.

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  18. Could you add an entry on backstabbing in your glossary? Not sure I understand how it works. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  19. So the party just stood and listened to Sir Karl giving his death speech? Nobody thought to instead spend that time casting some variety of Cure Wounds? Tip a potion down his throat? Raise Dead?

    Another dramatic death scene falls victim to RPG fridge logic.

    ReplyDelete

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