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Dungeons and Dragons Knowledge Compendium
ScurvySeaDog writes "Like me, I would bet many slashdotters where D&D players before they got their first home computer in the early 80's. This site seems to have every book, module, supplement ever published along with scans of the covers. They also have current collector values for you packrats. It was nostalgic for me to browse around looking up all the old modules and books."
Is anyone working on putting the adventures from the original D&D sets into Neverwinter Nights? It would be great to go and play them again. I might even try and track down the crazy DM I used to play with!
D & D as an action game was an interesting take...wonder if anyone will ever try that again?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
there was a D&D database called "Vast Database". Seems like everyone added their house rules to the database untill it was this monsterish download.
I can remember spending 2 days on a 14.4 modem on some BBS in Hawaii. I was in Alaska. My parents were VERY upset with the phone bill.
Has anyone seen it around? It had the # to another BBS to send updates/recieve updates. In mid 1992 it was 101 mb. That is about the last time I saw it. BBS died and the new "internet" thing was rolling.
Even now, no one has the bandwidth to host such a file given it's exponential growth rate. Given that it always seemed to take up half my hard drive, it ought to be up to about 80 gigabytes by now.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
You can play D&D using this Commodore 64 Emulator. Finding a copy of the disk to play it with is pretty easy with a search of google.
Jack Buck (1924-2002)
Darryl Kile (1968-2002)
It's true that many people started with D&D, but I guess that, while it has a lot of nice features (being quick and clean the one I like most), also many people got soon tired of the stereotypical characters it allowed and the poor realism of its rules. That's why I've always liked RM (RoleMaster) more. Much better (and complex, and maybe slow, yes), IMHO.
:-D). Sure D&D is the most "mainstream" of the RPG rules around, and that's the cause.
:-)
And it's a pity there's no good shop to boy RM things, as it seems there's for D&D (on-topic protection, yes
But only my 0.02EUR, of course
My weblog in spanish
Maybe now I can find the motivation to unload the 600+ issues of Dragon Magazine clogging up my apartment ... oh, well, someday.
Casual perusal of the Web site didn't turn up reference to the (failed) attempt to collect the "Wormy" cartoons into a single volume. I believe the artist was making a stab at self-publishing, selling "shares" to interested individuals. I must have been thirteen or so at the time, but I sent off for my "share" only to have it refunded months later due to insufficient share sales. I believe I still have the nifty printed scrap of paper somewhere.
Also of note are the "Phil and Dixie" volumes published by Phil Foglio long after its run in Dragon Magazine. Again unlisted, but I guess the site focuses on direct TSR publications only? Perhaps that's why the CD-ROM collection of a substantial number of Dragons is also missing (it gets brief mention in the "What's New" section. Maybe I'm simply too tired to comb through the site for the info.
... too many (*$#^@^# different dice! That's why Steve Jackson gave us GURPS ;-) Incidentally, these were the folks that got raided a while back for their BlackOps supplement...
The Monster Manuals were always my favorite D&D books. Where else could you find the intelligence level or hit points of a vampire or Dracula himself. Monster Manual 2 even had the stats for omnipotent beings who existed on multiple dimmensions simulataneously. The Old Ones, the Greek/Roman Gods and other legendary monsters were all systematicaly categorized with pictures as well. The monsters descriptions, "special attacks", and stats all followed traditional monster lore to a T and geeks appreciated this.
Taken from the Credits & Legal section of the site
Our scans are watermarked, and have been since the site's inception (albeit for a completely different reason); modifications to the image will not remove this watermark, and distribution or public posting of a watermarked image, without permission from The Acaeum, is prohibited.
Is this actually possbile? I noticed the images are stored in JPG format so wouldn't the watermark perhaps be lost in the compression scheme?
BTW Can you even copyright the scan of artwork/cover of which you don't even own the copyright?
aus.music.scrapbook
Looking at my shelf and I count no less than 15 different books that they don't have listed on their site. In addition 10 modules of which they have no mention. That site isn't as good as it looks.
Josh Winslow
Go on gnutella or your preferred p2p and search for "demento dungeon dragon".
There's an mp3 (the original) and an mpg (someone created a computer animation to go along with the soundtrack).
If you played dnd in high or junior high (now called middle) school, you will love this. You won't be disappointed.
Software Wars
When I first heard about Neverwinter Nights, I thought "Great, I can go and code all those modules I had when I was a kid"...then I started flashbacking to all my favorite modules' codes...D3, S2, Q1, etc.
But I realized it probably wouldn't work very well. The best modules always had a problem-solving aspect to it that just would never translate well to a the game frameworks that we have now. Neverwinter Nights is just not going to allow you the flexibility to really solve puzzles without cueing you so obviously as to what the solution might be.
The only game framework I could imagine that could really capture the essence of the best modules and campaigns is an Infocom-style framework - where the textual descriptions are so rich and your range of actions so potentially large that the solutions to the problems - and even the problems themselves - aren't painfully obvious. A puzzle isn't very satisfying when you only have to select one of 3 solutions from a menu, or when you just have to show up with an item and walk close to some target character, etc.
But sadly, this framework is almost completely incompatible - almost by definition - with Baldur's Gate-style graphics.
I first played D&D somewhere in late '79 or early '80. Looking at the Acaeum site and seeing the values placed on some of those modules... I still have quite a lot of them... I don't think I could bring myself to ever part with the stuff. It's been years since I've even looked at it, but somehow, it's a part of my life.
I love computers and computer gaming, but I am really quite glad that I was at just the right age to get involved when D&D was at its peak. (God I feel like an old fart for saying this...) Today's kids will never find the intellectual and creative stimulation from their consoles and gameboys and PCs that many of us did from books and dice and mountains of graph paper. (To this day, I still always keep a pad of the stuff nearby)
I've played through Neverwinter Nights, and enjoyed it thoroughly, but as other posts here have said, much of the joy of roleplaying AD&D is just not possible to emulate in a graphically oriented paradigm. Until someone can develop an AI computer that is 1 part actor, 1 part genius, and 2 parts off its rocker, computer based D&D games will never measure up.
The Digital Sorceress