Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Yes.
I'm afraid I don't know any specific URL's but there's a lot in the works.
Some maniacs are linking together a whole lot of servers to form the major parts of Faerûn. See Alandfaraway.net for more info. Sadly they're not taking player applications right now, so I haven't been able to try it out. Here's the mind-boggling server maps (click on a part of the map to see the server numbers).
Some other guys are implementing the city of Sigil with some planes as well.
And here's a module list on one of the largest fan sites. Most aren't D&D campaigns from "the books" but some might be.
Keep in mind that it's pretty time consuming to do large campaigns, but there *are* groups working on D&D adventures from the books while I type this.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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