Dungeons & Dragons Anniversary Gets Further Celebration

Thanks to GameSpy for its series of articles helping commemorate the 30th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. Continuing previous articles about the occasion, the week-long feature includes a look back at SSI's Gold Box series (" the first series of games to truly bring the D&D experience to video gamers"), The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert discussing his D&D schooldays ("We were all complete outcasts in school -- beyond the fringe, beyond nerds"), and a feature on Planescape: Torment ("One of the greatest, and certainly the weirdest, RPGs ever made.")

Comments

Bastards.

[Anonymous Coward]

They dissed Al-Qadim.

Torment was great

[Ev0lution]

Planescape:Torment was the best of the computer AD&D games and one of the best RPGs ever (only Ultima at its best could equal it IMHO). Conversation was as important as fighting, and the best aspect was the great interaction with the rest of the party - huge elements of plot could be uncovered by talking to your companions. Wish they would make another.

Re:Torment was great

[Anonymous Coward]

Torment is one of the best RPG's I have ever played. Right up there with Baldur's Gate II, Suikoden, Final Fantasy 7, and Knights of the Old Republic.

If you can stand the out-dated graphics, the game will run in a window on Windows 2000. I haven't tried it in XP. You can sometimes find it in the discount software area of Best Buy (the ones that are in jewel cases without boxes) for less than $10.

Re:Torment was great

[ajutla]

Torment works fine with XP, yeah, and I too have seen it at Best Buy in the "dual jewel" set, bundled with Soulbringer.

So much fun!

[fiftyvolts]

I'm not sure why, but rolling d20s is one of the most enjoyable experiences ever.

The past few years I've been lucky enough to have a strong group of DnD'ers to play with. We've been getting several games in a week. I think it's because it has a strong human element, as well as a structured rule system along with lots of possibility for strategy.

Wizards of the Coast has done a great job with the franchise since they bought it from TSR. Both from a marketing stand point and a rules standpoint (NWP's?! THAC0's!? WTF :-]).

If you've never played you should really give it a shot. I assure you that you will have some fun :D

Re:So much fun!

[plover]

I haven't played in probably ten years now, but I agree that it was always a good time. (Except for the rule nitpicking, and our DM would usually solve it the "Paranoia" way. The Paranoia GMs guide has one cardinal rule -- "Action is good, reward it with success. Be boring and you're dead." So, arguing about the rules ended up causing way more pain than it was worth.)

My biggest regret is that I loaned my boxed set of original D&D books (along with another dozen supplemental rule books, monster manuals, etc.,) to a friend just at the end of high school, and I never got them back. I should probably check eBay to make sure he hasn't sold them! :-)

Re:So much fun!

[Shadow Wrought]

I'm not sure why, but rolling d20s is one of the most enjoyable experiences ever.

I agree, but found wargaming (ala Epic 40k, Silent Death, Battletech, etc.) to be far more satisfying than roleplaying. My favorite by far though, would still have to be Dragon Dice. Although pretty much a dead game now, it was immensely enjoyable- especially if you liked dice!

Re:So much fun!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you find rolling a D20 so much fun just wait until you try having sex. Wow so much better.

Re:So much fun!

[Boronx]

I gave an excellent condition "Fiend Folio" to a friend when I graduated from high school only to hear that that was an exceedingly rare and valuable book as D&D books go.

Re:So much fun!

[Anonymous Coward]

"My biggest regret is that I loaned my boxed set of original D&D books (along with another dozen supplemental rule books, monster manuals, etc.,) to a friend just at the end of high school, and I never got them back."

Nor will you ! Muhahahaha.

Btw, i really enjoy your Natalie Portman d20's !

Re:So much fun!

[plover]

Dear Troy,

You anonymous bastard. I know you are living in the Napa valley, and I will hunt you to the ends of the vinyards in search of my beloved D&D and Chainmail books. You can drink, but you cannot hide forever.

Sincerely,

John.

P.S. Natalie Portman was not even born when I bought those dice. However, in lieu of hot grits, I distinctly remember your older brother pouring a big bowl of oatmeal on your crotch early one morning while you were still in bed. You never really told me why he did that, and I don't think I want to know, either.

P.P.S. If you borrowed my "Traveller" boxed set, I want those back too. They were even cooler than D&D.

Based on hours spent...

[ConceptJunkie]

I should have received a degree in D&D with a minor in Computer Science.

DnD replaced by MMORPG

[tod_miller]

In my limited roleplaying experience (mainly a few games of paranoia, and mechwarrior) I found the a good structure was excellent. The DM was intelligent enough that we were confortable with his decisions etc. It felt like a true game experience.

You had too many laughs obiviously, especially paranoia, which has an amazing atmosphere.

Take that to the PC. You have faceless people playing games, less laughs, more stats.

DnD used to be small groups of upto 12 (for Vampire games which again I joined out of interest).

MMORPG seem to have lost that element of role playing in their enormity.

How about a LMORPG? Get lots of subscribers, but play mini missions (1 week or so?) where you select a band of 5-6 other players, and really role play, and take challenges.

There should be an API for a human DM in these instances, as it is only their own mission.

Just a couple of eurocents.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Leffe]

Um, Neverwinter Nights?

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[fiftyvolts]

Even with something like NWN, I don't think you achieve the same kind of "fun & laughs" the parent post was talking about. Playing DnD with close friends is so much more personal than using a computer. With a computer there's no pencil, no paper, no dice, but instead a screen that blinks at you. No matter how powerful a computer gets there is still something much more touching about dealing with real people in real life.

... and I spend a LOT of time on the computer...

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Creepy Crawler]

If anything, NWN is a really handicapped version of AD&D 3.0 with too many bugs to count.. I'd name them off, but if you play more than 1 hour, you'll find them.

Never the less, to make NWN more enjoyable, I suggest you get NWN, SoU, and HotU along with downloadable pacthes CEP and PrC (http://nwnprc.netgamers.co.uk/). PrC attempt s to fix a lot of bugs, while adding in about 50 new classes, modifying the epic spell system so that it does NOT require feats, and adding of a bunch more feats in general.

I, so far, have played on 2 servers with all of these patches. It's quite interesting to see a floating skull casting magic at rapid fire (demilich class).

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize the irony in referring to D&D as "real life", right?

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Jahf]

These only address the bugs/glitches in NWN. NWN, while a very good engine in many ways, is extremely lacking in D&D human experience.

I would really like to see NWN2's engine allow for voice chat and webcams. Sure, you could run these things on the side but alot of people don't have 2 computers and these would need to be run simultaneously.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Jeranon]

No matter how powerful a computer gets there is still something much more touching about dealing with real people in real life.

Feh. Real people are overrated. Try dealing with metagaming powergamers who see nothing wrong with it (and technically, there is nothing wrong as it follows "teh roolz"). Burn out happens faster when you're at opposing sides of playing styles.

WotC did a survey where they broke down the player types into what people wanted in their RPG experience. From what I can see from WotC's current products and the computer games coming out, there is currently a bias towards the combat focused side. One could say that about the old Gold Box games, which are classics, but shouldn't games have evolved in the decade since? The critically acclaimed Planescape Torment, an innovative game in which only the ruleset was not, has shown that it's not the industry, it's just that most gamers aren't interested. Lamentation for Torment's poor sales indeed.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Clover_Kicker]

Maybe you need to play with a different group/DM?

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[microTodd]

I realize this is a joke, but I was listening to a commentary on the radio the other day and I realized how relevant this is.

Take any group of guy friends (or gals, for that matter). They enjoying spending time together. "Bonding", if you will. So what do they do? Go fishing? Bowling? Drink beer and watch Monday Night Football? Or get together and play a table-top RPG?

Yes, despite ironic jokes to the contrary, this is REAL LIFE. Real life is spending time with your friends in person, having conversations, participating in activities you enjoy together.

How come a poker club is "socially acceptable" as having a life, but D+D is not? In both cases you are sitting at a table for hours, drinking beer and talking to each other.

Its all about social stereotypes. But as the demographics of the population changes (I'm only speaking for the US...I don't have too much experience in other countries) I think that ideas about these things will change. Are videogames still "geeky" pasttimes? A lot of us who started the video game craze are now in our 30s with disposable income. And as my kids grow up I won't harbor any negative feelings against them for wanting to play a lot of videogames. The same is true for D+D.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get together to play poker, you talk about real things. When you get together to play D&D, you talk about pretend things. That's fine; it's a fun activity and a neat way to exercise the imagination. It's not really a substitute for actual conversation, though. If you have a D&D group that has more substantial contact, where you talk about what happened to each other at least as much as you talk about what happened to your characters, then you've found an atypical D&D group. Congrats.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[perlchild]

It's not just sales...

Making a great "brain" game is hard, making a hack and slash fest is "relatively easy".

Any sane PHB worth his salt would stay away from trying to make a Planescape II, even if it HAD sold, simply because if the brain is the game, he'd need to find

1) a group of very smart people
2) a group of very smart, creative people
3) a group of very smart, creative people who work well together
4) a group of very smart, creative people who work well together, and prevent egos from causing cost overruns.

Even Vegas won't give you good odds on #4...

We won't get innovative games until we punish the un-innovative ones with bad sales, VERY bad sales.
At least enough for one company to go under, but it has to be explicit... I just don't see that happening, a lot of casual gamers just don't have the exposure to a lot of the innovative, older games, in order to tell them apart from the new rehashed ones.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[FictionPimp]

My friend and I actually moved our PnP D&D game to NWN. I work in the module to design the story line for the day. We get together once every 2 weeks, which is enough time for me to make up 8-9 hours content. I also know my guys well enough to know what they will most likley try to do. If they suprise me I can always spawn in needed items. There is only 7 of us, and we all get together via teamspeak or just bring all our pc's over and setup in the house. It has added a lot more to our d&d exp. We no longer have to plan times when we can all drive out and play, we can schedual a hour here or there on a sunday, without the lugging of books, dice, buying the beer, etc.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Rolgar]

How about if you are using an audio chat ability and playing with friends (I have a co-worker that does this in SWG). It seems to me that you can hang out and play with friends and have some socialization at the same time.

I've played D&D (tabletop without the table), and it's great, making voices, and acting out the parts yourself.

Future cool projection: Linked holodecks. You log in to Everquest 20, from your holodeck. You look around, and the people in the game appear on your holodeck. PCs and NPCs alike are shown to you in 3D. If you were a halfling, the world would scale so that everything would have the correct deminsions (a tabletop would be eyelevel). When the GPLed gnu/D&Dholo client becomes available, your GM will be able to create and run a action D&D game customized to your party. Except your theif will have to go through traps training at the guild to learn trapping for real, and you'd probably want to practice up with lots of different weapons, just in case.

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Creepy Crawler]

Thats probably the best way to do this ;)

I usually stick on RP servers, but that's kinda sad cause you lack the emotion of the character.

If Im playing a paladin, and partied with a wizard, 2 clerics, and a rogue.. and the rogue is doing naughty tricks (not evil or unlawful, mind you), I'd give a stern look and a growl-like sound.. Sort of like a scowl, but how do I express this in NWN?

NWN on anything but RP is a glorified version of "Diablo 3" (do-ya-blow).

Re:DnD replaced by MMORPG

[Creepy Crawler]

Have you actually played a AD&D tabletop game? There's a lot more than just "game" that goes on.

What about Wizardry? Bard's Tale?

[dougmc]

the first series of games to truly bring the D&D experience to video gamers

While they didn't actually use the D&D license, I'd have to say that Wizardry and later on The Bard's Tale brought the `D&D experience to video gamers' long before the SSI games did.

But of course, when you're writing a story about D&D and not the copy cats, I guess it makes sense to ignore the copy cats, even if they did it first. (Which sounds really odd. Copy cats usually do something second, not first :)

A truer thing never said:

[Johnny Mnemonic]

From the interview with Stephen Colbert: I put more effort into that game than I ever did into my schoolwork.

If I had had 1/10 of the enthusiasm for my schoolwork as I did for drawing maps on graph paper and figuring the averages of different dice shapes and combinations I could have gone to Harvard.

Instead, I moved from D&D to MUSHing, and now I post on / in the middle of the day. So it goes.

ps: A 6 sided die has a 3.5 average, for those who had things to do on Friday nights :)

Re:A truer thing never said:

[rune.w]

But what about a d20???? Hell, it's Friday and time is running out, thank you very much...

Re:A truer thing never said:

[Anonymous Coward]

10.5 average

Re:A truer thing never said:

[FictionPimp]

A quick 100 rolls here at my desk (I work so hard). I'm comming up with 13.

Re:A truer thing never said:

[fiftyvolts]

You're using a large size d20. Standard size d20s average 10.5, while bantem weight d20's average either 9.5 or 9 depending on humidity.

Most people don't know this but dice are rated like resistors: diffenet color/speckle combinations depending on the die's average bias.

:-D

Re:A truer thing never said:

[Cassander]

Ok, maybe this is nitpicking, but:

Figuring out the average for a die is pretty damn easy. Assuming "straight" dice (x-sided die with exactly one of each number 1 through x, and each face being identical), the average is always going to be:

(1 + x) / 2

For combinations of dice, the rolls are going to follow a textbook bell curve (on two six-sided dice, there is only one combination that adds up to 12, but there are six combinations that add up to 7).

Figuring out the averages for your entire dice bag shouln't take more than a few minutes, let alone multiple Friday nights..

Re:A truer thing never said:

[greylouser]

It is easy to figure out the average roll of a standard die, but you might be surprised how many people get it wrong (or maybe not). Lots of people I know seem to think the average of a 20-sided die is 10, and the average of a 6-sided die is 3. (Instead of 10.5 and 3.5, respectively.)

I was a complete dunce about probability when I dungeon-mastered for our group back in high school. Rolling for stats, my players would ask to roll a 20-sided die instead of 3 six-siders. They'd take rolls of 19 or 20 and count them as 18s (and then ignore 1s or 2s). This completely went against the intent of the bell-shaped curve produced by 3 six-siders, but I was too dumb to know the difference.

A lot of people talk about how D&D really helped them with their math and statistics courses, but my math and statistics courses really helped my D&D. Which just seems kinda sad, really.

Overhyped

[mwheeler01]

The D&D 30th anniversary is just an overhyped way for WoTC to sell more books. IMHO the only real merit of D&D is that it set the ball rolling and brings RPG to the masses. There are a lot of better systems out there in terms of playbility or realism or flexability, plain and simple. If 'it works and it's what everyone else plays' were a good enough reason, Linux would never have made it past Linus's HD.

Re:Overhyped

[Asmor]

As far as realism goes, there are definitely better systems. As far as flexibility, playability and simplicity go, I defy you to name any system which beats the D20 system in *any* of those categories, never mind all 3.

Re:Overhyped

[mwheeler01]

Flexability, I can name a ton, GURPS, FUDGE, FATE... do you really want a level system? Would you find it easy to play as a party of Bunnies in D20? Simplicity, again I'd go for FUDGE, though there are plenty of other examples. Playability is all in the eye of the beholder but combat in D&D seems overly cumbersome with all the feats and bonuses to calculate (How many attacks of opportunity do I get if the Orc is nearsighted with a toothache and me thief has 12 daggers of cheapness?) needless to say, almost any other system I think is more playable, but that's just me. Check out Faterpg.com if you don't believe me.

Re:Overhyped

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as realism goes...

Dude, you're talking about a game called Dungeons and Dragons, for Christ's sake... : p

Re:Overhyped

[fiftyvolts]

Sure they're using it as a marketing tool, but I still get misty eyed over the whole thing.

I have Planescape: Torment

[david.given]

...and it's brilliant. Really. The characters are excellent, the graphics are great, the voice acting is superb (although there's not much of it), it has an atmosphere you can cut with a knife, and the writing --- wow. If you've played it, you'll know what I mean when I say that Morte, Dak'kon and Annah's backstories all hit me at the same time, and I was glued to my monitor for several hours, ignoring the graphics, just reading the text as it scrolled past...

Alas, it's not perfect. The AI ain't great; Ignus, my physically weak but very powerful sorceror, has a tendency to wander up to some huge, horrible monster when I ask him to cast a long-range spell unless I keep an eye on him. (This tends to be terminal for him.) There are some scripting bugs; there's one minor subquest I can't complete. There are some more serious engine bugs, too. If I try and enter one room the game crashes on me, which is a pity because I need something that's in it. One whole section, the Godsman temple, is noticeably poorly written, at least compared to the rest of it.

The worst problem is that it's far too easy to get involved in the story and gallop through the main plot while avoiding the subplots. (I did this.) This means you end up at the endgame grossly underpowered. I'm now wandering around trying to level up so I stand a slight chance against the ...

But the problems are minor. If you like RPGs, get it. It's not expensive these days, and you'll enjoy it. It's the classic RPG; if you think you know about the genre, it's required playing. It's the Hamlet of RPGs, and no, I don't think I'm overstating the case.

It's a damned shame it didn't sell better --- it was probably too intelligent. If it had, perhaps we'd have more games that were that good.

Re:I have Planescape: Torment

[Asmor]

Rot13: Lbh pna orng gur ynfg obff guebhtu qvnybt. V qba'g erpnyy jung cngu gb gnxr fvapr vg'f orra lrnef, ohg lbh fubhyq or noyr gb jva jvgubhg guebjvat n chapu (be n sveronyy). Gurer zvtug or n erdhvfvgr nzbhag bs Jvfqbz gb trg gur qvnybt bcgvba, gubhtu, V qba'g xabj. Jura V cynlrq V nyjnlf gevrq gb znk bhg zl zragny fgngf gb trg gur zbfg bhg bs qvnybt.

Re:I have Planescape: Torment

[Jeranon]

Yes, Wisdom was the most important statistic and yes, Torment could be resolved in a Fallout way.

Remember to play it evil. Unlike KotOR's weak attempt (i.e. who needs roleplaying when you have Force Lightning), I found it done well.

Re:I have Planescape: Torment

[TCiecka]

Great game. Lots of bugs, however. Sadly, the majority of them were within the very conversational dialogs that garnered so much praise. Whole portions of backstory and in-game dialog are hidden in any unpatched installation.

Thank god for the fan community around it (and incidentally that of Baldur's Gate) or we wouldn't have Platter's Fix packs nor the ability to play around with BioWare's Infinity Engine which powers it.

Fix Packs for Torment
http://www.accesswave.ca/~cthorpe/

Jon Olav Hauglid's Infinity Engine Editor
http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~joh/ni/about.html

Misc Torment stuff c/o Platter
SPOILER WARNING
http://platter.jink.org/

Mods:

[Mongoose Disciple]

The parent post, while short, actually is not off topic. Al-Qadim was a setting for the AD&D game in its 2nd edition, and a computer game was made for it.

The articles' "dis" of it is definitely on topic.

Re:What about Wizardry? Bard's Tale?

[RexDart]

A fairly lengthy story on NPR yesterday presents an 'outsiders' view of RPGs; Includes brief audio from D&D co-creator Dave Arneson and adult players of the game.
They do cover the crossover and influence on computer games, one interveiwee labeling the game "the first virtual reality". Worth a listen.

Let's be honest...

[Mongoose Disciple]

When has an anniversary event for ANY product ever not just been a marketing scheme to sell more product?

That said...

I've played dozens of different RPG systems, and I generally prefer D&D. It's not for everyone, and it's not for every game. (I prefer classic Cthulhu to d20 Cthulhu, for example, simply because of the greater PC fragility.)

If you and your gaming group prefer a different system, more power to you. We're fortunate that the hobby can support these alternatives. However, it seems silly at best to imply that D&D's popularity is solely a result of momentum and ignorance.

Spoiler alert for parent post

[Boronx]

Dude, you need a spoiler alert. Those of us unfamiliar with rot13 won't get the hint until it's to late.

Re:Spoiler alert for parent post

[Asmor]

I didn't mention any specifics. I don't even think that spoils the story at all. I just mentioned one of the possibilities.

They didn't mention Buck Rogers

[Pluvius]

Even though they weren't packaged in gold boxes, Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed (warning: popups) used the Gold Box engine with modifications. Countdown to Doomsday was probably my favorite of all of the Gold Box games, especially if you count the enhanced version of it for the Sega Genesis.

Rob

why use a substitute?

[Seraphim_72]

When the real thing is out there I own the original and the SJ versions ... Nerdvana here I come!!

Torment in Cedega?

[Reorax]

Yes, Planescape: Torment is the best game of all time. But has anyone managed to get it working in Cedega/WineX? It only gives me a blank screen...

hahaha

[geekoid]

How can you tralk about flexability and 'ease' in the same sentece as GURPS?

PLease, I have super stupendous skill from the conan the dishwasher book, page 23 top sidebar!

GURPS is full of take this skill, and divide by three. There is very little flexibility, even less as more books get published.

GURPS is a munchkens wet dream.

I am not anti-gurps, and run a GURPS Horror game on mondays. It aint flexable, or easy. I can teach some hero system in 5 minutes, your lucky to know what your doing in gurps after 5 game sessions.

Re:hahaha

[mwheeler01]

I wasn't talking about 'ease' merely flexability. If you want 'ease' try 'Fairy Meat' or FUDGE.

wrong

[geekoid]

a single die has no average. G'uh, it's RANDOM.

Not to be a party pooper ...

[arhar]

... but I have to comment on this.

Planescape Torment was not such a great game. Now, let me just say I'm not trolling and hear me out.

Sure, it was an amazing STORY. The characters were brilliant, great dialog, etc... but was it FUN to play? Not really. In the end, I abandoned the game and just went to some site to read what happens... boring battle system, bad skill system, apathetic gameplay, uninteresting monsters (a real shame... I have 4 Planescape Monster Manuals in paperback and there are some amazing monters in there).. you said it yourself: you were glued to the monitor, reading the text and ignoring everything else.

And that, I think, is the real reason the game didn't do so well. The REAL Hamlet of D&D RPG's, imho, has to be Baldur's Gate series games ... which didn't have such an amazingly elaborate script, but the gameplay was so well thought-out and balanced that it was just so much FUN you couldn't stop playing.