Best D&D CRPG

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Would have made for a much better Drizzt series: Page 1, Line 1:'Drizzt made a face of incomprehension as Buck Rogers' spaceship fired a salvo of lasers, vapourising the rebel drow. The end.'

???

 

[Serus]

BTW, cooperative play in Tower of Doom requires much skill and thought. It's a very nice game and is now perfectly playable on MAME.

Wasn't Shadow over Mystara the superior sequel ?
Never played them with other people, must be fun. Good games even in "single player" though. Come as close to being an RPG as an arcade game can get.

Still, mentioning them in this thread in first place is ridiculous.

 

[kmonster]

Planescape Torment

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Personally I believe PoR pissed on Curse but I wont go into why. ITs mainly artistic preference.

Many other reasons: more open-ended, more diverse quests, less linearity, an actual exploration element, the overland map system... Azure Bonds had a tighter story and shifted more towards 2E rules but otherwise POR did everything else better.

Both games are much better than Silver Blades anyway.

You could technically say PoR was more open for exploration. Even that is more artistic. PoR wasn't just open-ended ended, it was open-ended done right. The only thing wrong was how it took you to battle world. In the I prefer BG's system or SoZ's. Though for its time and compared to other GB games it had the best system.

 

[commie]

The Gold Box Games, period.

You're fucking boring Jaesun, since I've little choice but agree with you all the time.

 

[Dele]

NWN.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Personally I believe PoR pissed on Curse but I wont go into why. ITs mainly artistic preference.

Many other reasons: more open-ended, more diverse quests, less linearity, an actual exploration element, the overland map system... Azure Bonds had a tighter story and shifted more towards 2E rules but otherwise POR did everything else better.

Both games are much better than Silver Blades anyway.

You could technically say PoR was more open for exploration. Even that is more artistic. PoR wasn't just open-ended ended, it was open-ended done right. The only thing wrong was how it took you to battle world. In the I prefer BG's system or SoZ's. Though for its time and compared to other GB games it had the best system.

You prefer the BG system? Well, to each their own. I lament the loss of the 'Battle zone' system that many old CRPG's had even today. It provided a perfect tactical combat arena (though naturally todays technology could enhance this system even more).

 

[Zomg]

Shattered Lands is like the good parts of Gold Box games minus the non-D&D blobber conventions. And the blobber conventions in the GBs were pretty much mindless mazes, they never got much out of them compared to purer blobbers as far as interesting puzzles, fun exploration, etc.

I think the design of PoR is overall better than Curse, but Curse has way more good set pieces and is set in a better level range for the D&D rules

And maybe most importantly they implemented automatic re-memorization of spells and the sainted Fix command

 

[mondblut]

And the blobber conventions in the GBs were pretty much mindless mazes, they never got much out of them compared to purer blobbers as far as interesting puzzles, fun exploration, etc.

Blasphemy. Moander's Heart in POD was among the craziest and most fun dungeons in all RPGs. Those occasional gushes of blood carrying the party all the way through the corridors were nothing short of awesome.

If anything, it is "proper blob games" fetish with inane puzzles that is retarded. Putting rocks on floor plates, solving fucking crosswords, gathering a bunch of keys across the level; isn't a "dungeon" supposed to be a place someone or something gets to fucking *live* in?

 

[Zomg]

I can't remember shit from PoD, but I guess they'd have had some time to figure out how to do less badly by the last couple of VGA GBs. I think my most recent play was Countdown to Doomsday and the dungeons didn't strike me as good or awful.

If anything, it is "proper blob games" fetish with inane puzzles that is retarded. Putting rocks on floor plates, solving fucking crosswords, gathering a bunch of keys across the level; isn't a "dungeon" supposed to be a place someone or something gets to fucking *live* in?

What the fuck, are you a 1991 Dragon Magazine? I give no fuck for dungeon ecology.

 

[mondblut]

What the fuck, are you a 1991 Dragon Magazine? I give no fuck for dungeon ecology.

There is a difference between stuck up simulationist dungeon ecology (a dungeon populated by single species with their women, children, old folk and livestock would be a pretty boring sight... even if amusing to slaugther for the first time), and straight up retardation in form of fucking crosswords to solve in order to pass on to the next level. Suspension of disbelief flies outta window faster than it does upon hearing the words "japanese RPG". Yes, Van Caneghem, I am speaking to you.

Somehow P&P dungeons didn't have to resort to all kinds of idiotic puzzle minigames in order to be interesting to explore.

 

[Zomg]

Have you read those 1980ish D&D modules? Frictionless floors, timed hot mud geysers, riding out of exploding volcanos, crashed space ships?

 

[Sceptic]

straight up retardation in form of fucking crosswords to solve in order to pass on to the next level. Suspension of disbelief flies outta window faster than it does upon hearing the words "japanese RPG". Yes, Van Caneghem, I am speaking to you.

Someone is very angry about Dungeon of Death

To be fair I agree with mondblut on this one. DoD (all 4 levels. It gets even more retarded by the time you reach level 4, and this is coming from someone who likes the SF elements in the series) was the perfect example of how NOT to design a good dungeon. Good dungeons must have some sense of purpose but it doesn't have to be "species X lives here"; take the Urbish Mines from LOL. As mines they didn't make as much sense on closer inspection, and they certainly made no sense whatsoever as a habitat, but they formed one coherent whole, and when you did something on level 1 that affected level 3 it did make sense. The entirety of Moander's demiplane in POD is another great example. Each of his organs ("dungeons" in the loosest sense) has a specific purpose and the mechanics of the Heart are just awesome.

MM6 had some great ones like this too. Take the Abandoned Temple, the 2nd dungeon you visit. You go in, it looks exactly like a temple, then you find that it was built so that its "basement" is a natural cavern... and then you discover the extension of the cavern system goes much deeper and that's where the spider infestation is coming from.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

You prefer the BG system? Well, to each their own. I lament the loss of the 'Battle zone' system that many old CRPG's had even today. It provided a perfect tactical combat arena (though naturally todays technology could enhance this system even more).

Oh yeah screw combat arenas. That fight in the BG brothel was something I will take to the grave. I couldn't stop laughing at all the crispy ho corpses fallen by a fireball spell.

 

[Zomg]

I dunno, the "exactly the right amount of realism" stuff sounds like, "I drive exactly the right speed, everyone that drives faster is crazy and everyone that drives slower is a pussy". Too realistic = too slow, no one wants to see the ten millionth orc bunkroom and mess hall, too surreal = too fast, I don't want to solve Gygax' crazy fever dream. I just say good is good and it's a matter of context and goal.

 

[Erebus]

I've only played two of the Gold Box games (the first and third of the Dragonlance series) and, while they had great combat, they were fairly limited in some ways : C&C was almost non-existent, mental stats only determined whether priests and wizards could learn high-level spells, charisma was useless, etc.

 

[mondblut]

Someone is very angry about Dungeon of Death

If only. Were DoD an exception, it could be ignored as an irrelevant easter egg. Much like the fans of Fallout realism are collectively oblivious to that "sorcerer" mutant summoning beasts out of nowhere in some underground location.

Problem is - every. fucking. dungeon. in. M&M. 3-5. is. like. that. If you don't have to reveal the map and see the walls forming words or numbers for you to input somewhere, then you have to solve some elementary school level riddles and word games asked by skulls, or pull 20 levers all over the floor, or jump across swinging blades placed everywhere (and gee, it's just there where teleportation fails for some reason), or some other equally idiotic shit. Itz like that "decline of adventure games" everyone was talking about, except seemingly targeted at 5 year olds.

And don't let me start on Dungeon Master and all of its clones with their endless "put boulders on 4 pressure plates to open the door" crap. Fuck, any LucasArts or Sierra Online adventure game makes more sense than these.

Good dungeons must have some sense of purpose but it doesn't have to be "species X lives here";

Exactly.

As somebody wrote somewhere a decade ago (quoth my memory), "People don't gather one day and decide, let us build ourselves a nasty dungeon. No, they build a temple, or a crypt, or a fortress, or something else with a practical purpose in mind. And *then* some shit happens and it becomes a dungeon".

 

[octavius]

To me it's the orignal Pool or Radiance that was the ultimate AD&D experience, with a modded Baldur's Gate 1(NPC Project, Sword Coast Strategems as the main mods) as the runner up.
BG2 had good story and NPC interaction but combat was rather cheesy.

 

[Saxon1974]

To me it's the orignal Pool or Radiance that was the ultimate AD&D experience, with a modded Baldur's Gate 1(NPC Project, Sword Coast Strategems as the main mods) as the runner up.
BG2 had good story and NPC interaction but combat was rather cheesy.

I hated the closed off world of BGII.

Most people here seem to think its the superior product to BGI, but I liked BGI much better because you could freely explore the world (And yes I know many think it was bland and boring wilderness screens).

 

[octavius]

To me it's the orignal Pool or Radiance that was the ultimate AD&D experience, with a modded Baldur's Gate 1(NPC Project, Sword Coast Strategems as the main mods) as the runner up.
BG2 had good story and NPC interaction but combat was rather cheesy.

I hated the closed off world of BGII.

Most people here seem to think its the superior product to BGI, but I liked BGI much better because you could freely explore the world (And yes I know many think it was bland and boring wilderness screens).

Yeah, not so much wilderness exploration in BG2, but I think the city explorations of Athkatla is probably the best one of any game I've played.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Darklands did it better

 

[racofer]

I do it better

 

[SkeleTony]

I've only played two of the Gold Box games (the first and third of the Dragonlance series) and, while they had great combat, they were fairly limited in some ways : C&C was almost non-existent, mental stats only determined whether priests and wizards could learn high-level spells, charisma was useless, etc.

Can't be blamed on the Goldbox games themselves. This was the wonkiness of (A)D&D period. The game designers working for TSR back in the day tried to find ways to make the system work in a whole slew of articles for Dragon magazine, sometimes brilliantly(considering what they had to work with) but it was a case of adding perfume and lace to a pile of shit. You end up with a bigger pile of shit even if the perfume part does not smell as bad and the lace part does not look as foul.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The whole system was originally purely for resolving fantasy combat between small groups. Then you got dungeons and traps. Everything else was added on which made the rules really combat-heavy and wonky in everything else, until 3rd edition started fresh and 3.5 improved the whole thing lots.

To Erebus, do try the first game - Pool of Radiance. The beginning is pure dungeon-dwelling but then the world map opens and you can explore there freely. Most "dungeons" can be done whenever you want, though certain dungeons open up only after clearing older ones. The game doesn't have rangers or paladins, though.

 

[Jasede]

BG 1 & 2 for me.

Combat was lacking, but the encounters were good. Having so many spells was refreshing. I enjoyed the multitude of optional areas that had little in them. A very environmental, atmospheric experience. Think Morrowind.

Pools of Darkness kicks ass when it comes to hack & slash, though.