What do you know about Dungeons & Dragons?

[thegrindre]

Hi all,
Back in the late '70's - '80's, I had all the paraphernalia and was a Dungeon Master. I also enjoyed other's dungeons as a player as well. I very much enjoyed this game and was wondering how it has developed in the PC world.
I understand there is an on-line version, too.

Could someone enlighten me in sharing what they know about the latest 'happenings' of D&D on the PC platform?

[Knave]

The pen and paper version started with the Brown Box rule set. Followed by the Blue Box rule set. Then the famous Advanced Dungeon and Dragons rule set. We had all those. Played for years. Then came the 3.0 rule followed by 3.5 and 4.0. The 3.5 rule set is considered to be the best. 4.0 is considered the worst version...Ever.

Various platforms had Different versions of D&D over the years. PC games as well. The Baldur's Gate series was very good. I was to busy with life to play The Temple of Elemental Evil module. I understand it was well received as well.

2006 Turbine released an MMO based on the 3.5 version of the rules. Dungeons and Dragons online. Level cap was 10. Each level had four benchmarks within the level. There are some differences in how game play works. As not all facets of pen and paper make the transition to video game. This game was released as a subscription game. A monthly fee was required to play. The level cap was raised to 20. And all kinds of new content released. Rules were added and changed as the game grew.

Last year they re released the game as a free to play game. Renamed Dungeon and Dragons Unlimited. Membership is spread across three types. Subscription or VIP, which give you access to all areas within the game at no extra cost. Premium, which is former subscription players that went free to play. And the F2P members. A lot of the game is free to play for them. However quite a bit is not free. They need to buy 'paks" to gain entry to certain quests within the game. Yeah, we stayed subscription. The normal sub rate is 15 dollars a month. They had a special for 10, which we grabbed.

Once in the game you build your character. You chose sex, male or female. Race. Human, Elf , Dwarven. Then class. This translates to occupation. Fighter, wizard, Sorcerer,Ranger or cleric. Later you can unlock Warforged (robot) or drow. Later this month they are adding half orcs and half elves.

The game is played best with a headset and microphone. As you join parties of other people to do quests and that is the best way to communicate. just by talking. You can listen through speakers and 'talk back' by typing into the chat window. A lot of people play that way. Parties are groups of up to six people. They are from all over the United States. and lately, the world. There are also Raid Parties. These are 12 people and normally a difficult quest.

The game is mainly young people who play a style called power gaming. No role playing. Just go go go. Not for me. In the beginning it was us older guys that remembered the good ol days. Sigh, not any more. I get by with playing with my family. There are some things three people cannot do. However there is enough to keep us busy. There are a few like us still around. And it is good when we run into each other.

There is a stand alone series of pc games called Neverwinter Nights that is very good. With platform games and before we all had our own computer we would play those games as a committee. Lots of fun. I'll let someone else get in here with a word or two.

[thegrindre]

Thanks, Knave. Lotsa info here. I never kept up with it past the early '80. Real life got in the way...

I think $15 a month is a little strong. That's $180 a year for maybe a $50 game. That part doesn't interest me but the free play may be interesting enough.

[Knave]

The subscription part was hard for me to get past as well. Which is why I mentioned Neverwinter Nights as an option. The early ones and Temple of Elemental Evil might be found in discount barrels somewhere. I always wanted to play Temple. That was one of the pen an paper modules we had going when we stopped playing. I understand it had a lot of similarities in common.

Real Life. Hard to argue with.

[Knave]

Rick, were you an Advanced D&D player or did you go 3.0 before you left the game? We were Advanced. 3.0 came out without us even noticing. We were doing the add ons like Battlehammer for tabletop armies. And the one that allowed for space travel. Dwarves in space, imagine that. Been so long I can't remember what it was called. As the kids got older they started dragging our stuff out of the boxes and using it. Our Elder Son has a group he dm's on saturdays. Our Daughter won't play the online version. A self proclaimed d&d snob. lol. They do 3.5 rules. However they still use some of the books from our day to add variety. And the die cast figurines their Mother hand painted. Gary Gygax and Dave Arnosen passed away a couple of years ago. About six months apart. They both did a dm's voice for a quest in DDO. Very nice really.

[Blackhawk]

Well I've never played D&D although my brothers did have several of the versions of the game. I have played early computer RPG's like Dungeons and many of the Ultima series, and more recently Baldur's Gate. Although a single player RPG probably won't give you the same feeling/effect that the old D&D games probably had, but they can be a good way to waste some time. Several years ago someone created a hybrid version of Ultima 6 online, and it was essentially the single player game but created in an online environment, it was rather fun and the number of players was fairly small so people were friendly and would help each other out. Unfortunately, I'd guess things like that are rare in the internet world.

Slightly off topic but it's interesting apparently a jail banned D&D as they thought the dungeon master was like a gang leader and you could use it to escape from reality. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27dungeons.html

[thegrindre]

D&D was quite looked down upon back then, especially here in Arkansas. We were all known as some kind of cult thing on drugs. No one understood that it was just a game. Rather weird...

Alright, now you're really jerking my memory when it comes to versions. Advanced rings a bell, yes. I believe we did go into 3.0... Cannot remember, though.
I had moved from California to Arkansas in '78. I then met a few college people who invited me to play the game, fell in love with it and, one of the girls, then she and I started our own local D&D group.
(Ran with her for 14 1/2 years, btw. We almost got married.)
In 1980 is when real life poked its ugly head into play and I/we started driving an 18 wheeler across country. That killed our D&D group. She and I were the DMs and created all the dungeons every week. We kept all our play 'on the ground' and followed the more conventional format along the lines of the Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. Our group gobbled this line of play up.
I don't remember any type of space travel back then nor using any add-ons. Every week she and I created everything and usually opened with a 15-20 minute beginning story to set the mood. (She was an English major and wrote everything and I was a pretty good story teller. I must say, we were quite good at it, so we were told. LOL)
So, whatever versions were out for that two year period or so are what we played. I remember us all having a number of lead figurines, most all printed material available at the time and the dungeon floor tiles.
(I loved those D&D floor tiles. I used those for their 'field of vision' when they entered areas or sections of the dungeon. I remember when I sprung those floor tiles on the group for the first time. They went nuts and loved 'em, too.)
We always tried to keep everything as secret as possible to the players until it was time to reveal, whatever we had in store for them, to experience.
Rules were, 'No player was allowed to read any DM material'. They followed it and were great players, btw.
I believe level 15 was the max anyone could achieve at the time. (We had one worrier at that level if I remember correctly.)

Boy, have you ever brought back some memories...

Oh, my, I'm sorry to hear that about Gary and Dave. Guess we can't live forever, though...
Do you know if their game ever made 'em rich? Did they die wealthy? Just curious...

[thegrindre]

Now, it's story time. I'll try to keep it brief but, I need to 'put you there' first.
We had some very devoted players and they would even come in costume occasionally. They all tried to, 'get into character', as best they knew how. (We had a great group.)
One guy, a worrier, had achieved level 15 and was a pretty mean dude. He always led the pack into each scenario. He, personally, was a big guy himself. Over 6' tall and well over 200 lbs. and was the reason he chose to be a worrier. In reality, he was just a big ol' teddy bear... As nice as one could ever be.

Anyway, this particular dungeon was a stinker. We just about killed everybody off with the dice rolls that night and had to modify them accordingly so we wouldn't. (It was a bad night for dice.)
We had the group emerge from the dungeon, finely but, they were all pretty well beat up with broken bones, bloody body parts, limping and crawling to the best of their abilities and, the leader of the pack, the great worrier, was out cold and dying. He was being dragged on a stretcher.

This is kinda funny but sad, too. When the worrier took that 'fatal' blow that knocked him out, he started crying and couldn't stop. Right there at the table!
We told the group that they had about an hour to do something about all this or they'd loose the worrier among some other badly damaged body parts of their own. (He was devastated and cried even louder. We actually had to stop the game to console him. They were all quite devastated, btw.)

OK, this 'dungeon' wasn't over yet and we tried to get them to continue but, this 'big ol' teddy bear' wouldn't stop crying and broke up the game for the night.
What they were supposed to do was find a place of shelter then send an able bodied member out in search of help but, we couldn't get 'em to do this. Little did they know, there was a healing pond not too far away but, we couldn't tell 'em this, they had to find it on their own.

Unfortunately, this was the last dungeon we played. It was a two part dungeon. (We couldn't tell them this either.) The healing aspect was going to be the beginning of the second dungeon.

I'm sorry to say, this guy went home in tears.
If they'd only continued on...

By the way, I did bump into this worrier and a few of the others to let them know about the second half and that everything was going to turn out for the better IF they'd continued on.

[Knave]

We had a group that met at our table for years. We played the Advanced rules with some house rules thrown in from Dungeon Magazine. We were all about the same age and had kids the same age. And we were all trying to become established in our chosen fields. We played mostly through the winter when we were unemployed. The Wives either played with us or were happy to know where their other half was at night. You could tell who had a little bit of work by the beer he would bring. I don't know why, but an unwritten rule was you couldn't ask to have someones beer. You brought yer own or went without. One guy had been bringing generic beer for quite awhile. A white can with 'beer' written on it. He was working part time and going to college. Anyway, they ran into quite a mob and one by one was going down. Generic beer guy planted himself in a doorway and through some amazing dice rolls, all in plain view, was the last man standing. After he facilitated the restoration of the party he found a Coors and a Bud in front of him. He had to call his wife to come get him. What broke up our group was we became established and the kids got older. Yeah, life happened. Every now and then we would have a In Character night. Instead of starting out chit chatting about things from our daily lives, we would arrive in character and play that way. We had a local church send someone to watch us play one night. Small town. They came away thinking it was different alright, but not sinful.


Gary sold a lot of his interest in the game in a attempt to do a Dungeons and Dragons movie. He was sideswiped by a 'friend' and lost control of TSR. He was ousted. Dave had sued Gary early and had to be included as a co inventor of the game and received a certain amount of royalties. Certain changes happened in the game then to minimise those royalties. They each had attempts at cottage industries to sell add ons to the basic game. Gary wrote a line of books. One of the things that got Gary bounced was he felt that the Advanced rule set was good. and the was no way he was going to fleece the player base by selling new rule sets every few years. An add on every now and then was all he had planned. We now see why they have new rule sets. Did they die wealthy from their game? Probably not. Others have that claim.

I found a plastic table cloth that was tan with one inch squares. We used tiles on it and washable markers. We used mostly store bought modules for play. However the content and treasure were highly modified to fit our overall campaign. Although some of our do it our selves stuff had to be done to make a storyline transition. We used battlehammer when someone wanted to establish their own castle out in the wilderness. Armies of orcs and goblins descending on the players to send them packing.

Like you said. a flood of memories.