History of video games.
Lots of games came out before 1993 Aelryinth.I'm not even sure there's a video game that predates 3.5 by ten years. Even Ultima, etc, as MMORPG's were mid-90's. Yeah, there were a few video games in the 80's, but not many...computer tech just wasn't that advanced, and most games were sideways scrollers or almost text based.
==Aelryinth
Ehm, I know. I have the textbook version.
Like I said...sideways scrollers or heavily text based. I played most of those. Many have strong D&D ancestry showing. Animation compared to nowadays are childish. And yes, I owned an Atari, too.
I should have noted that I was referring to more open architecture sorts of things that you find in MMO's and some of the bigger games nowadays.
The phrasing should have been "I'm not sure there's a relevant video game he's referring to that predated 3.5 by 10 years..." :)
===Aelryinth
Neither Legend of Zelda nor Final Fantasy were side scrollers, or text based (any more than any other turn based RPG is "text based"). They are still relevant today, and are good games. Also, you may have noticed that the 15th-ish sequel for Final Fantasy is coming up soon and has come out already for Legend of Zelda.
But even if we assumed you were correct and none of those games are "relevant" Legend of Zelda was released in 1986. That still gives us 7 years of game releases before D&D 3.5 would be released in 10 years.
1992 was the release of a few little things called Command And Conquer and Starcraft. Final Fantasy V was released for that series the same year. The year afterwards Link's Awakening was released for Zelda. SaGa 2 (reskinned as Final Fantasy Legend 2 in the US) was released in 1991 (in NA) as well. I still enjoy playing that game today.
That's just listing the big ones I'm interested in, I can dig up a lot more if you want more proof.
Knights of Blackforest.
Wizardcraft.
Renaissance.
These all are classified as RPGs.
Because a player only controlled an individual they built using the rules. not a unit or army.
Renaissance is from the 40s and is only available in French, Spanish, German, and Polish.
NOTE: These are European. Chainmail was one of the few easily obtained by Americans.
Any links to information on these games that you could provide would be appreciated.
@Shadowborn: I can find any links that don't show up as broken half the time... Mostly do to hosting.
For Wizardcraft & Renaissance there is The Witchcraft Project & The Da Vinci Project respectively. They are being done as OGL games do to the fact that the original games where never truly Copyrighted. They are also being done by the same group. The website is up in the air do to loss of hosting.
Knights of Blackforest has been out of print since... dear lord it has been OoP since 1979... You might look into some of the Obscure RPG forums as there might be some one who has typed up the rules into a digital format.
I do remember that Renaissance only has Alchemy and little to no magic, but has excellent firearm rules. (Perfect for a Rave Master based RPG really)
Knights of Blackforest has LotR level Magic. With Wizardcraft pretty well having around 3.5/Pathfinder Spell Level 4-5 magic.
EDIT: sorry it is Kights of the Blackforest. It is the oldest of the 3 by 2 years followed by Renaissance then Wizardcraft in 1959.
@Shadowborn: I can find any links that don't show up as broken half the time... Mostly do to hosting.
Do you know what countries they were published in? maybe we could serch in those languages?
Also even old links might be useful as we could serch using the wayback machine.
@Shadowborn: I can find any links that don't show up as broken half the time... Mostly do to hosting.Do you know what countries they were published in? maybe we could serch in those languages?
Also even old links might be useful as we could serch using the wayback machine.
See my original post for most of the languages.
They all at some point were owned by Wyrmhart Games at some point. Though only for the 1 year Wyrmhart was its own independent company.
Wayback Machine?
NOTE: To even get a English copy you had to custom order it from Wyrmhart and only during that 1 year period were they printed.
@Shadowborn: I can find any links that don't show up as broken half the time... Mostly do to hosting.Do you know what countries they were published in? maybe we could serch in those languages?
Also even old links might be useful as we could serch using the wayback machine.
See my original post for most of the languages.
They all at some point were owned by Wyrmhart Games at some point. Though only for the 1 year Wyrmhart was its own independent company.
Wayback Machine?
NOTE: To even get a English copy you had to custom order it from Wyrmhart and only during that 1 year period were they printed.
and how many of these "veterans" from these obscure games with no copyrights owned by companies that existed for a year in odd languages exist?
A game developed in 1959? lets say the would-be-veteran was 20 when he played that game he's what 80 today? and you said veterans with an s.
So these players from the 60s, with games that have literally nothing to do with DnD and would resemble any edition of this game as much as frogger resembles diablo, are relevant how?
You asked what games came before D&D. He answered. Don't get all pissy because you don't LIKE the answer.
I've come up with tons of "ideas" before something was in print, became a movie, or a product, doesn't mean me and my friends were playing a 'game' or had a 'pre-existing product' before something else came into being.
It's not a "game" if it couldn't be bought or sold, especially since it can't even be proven that a) it ever existed b) was remotely similar if it existed or c) ever was in the knowledge of anyone other than a few friends who hung out with each other.
And if the case WAS c) then one could hardly consider these few people a group of "veterans" a decade before DnD. It simply doesn't qualify.
I also highly suspect since, NO reference of these games or similarity existed in the last decades upon decades of DnD that the truth of the games (if the existed) is highly exaggerated by those of memories of them.
and the question still remains, what does a "veteran" of an irrelevant game system (if you would call it that) have anything to do with or reference to the terminology of "feat" vs"Feature" being main stream or in use in RPGs?
The answer is, even if the games did exist, they are so obscure and unknown, that any abbreviation or terminology their practitioners ever had or used, NEVER made it's way into
DnD or other mainstream RPG's and so therefor the reference is completely obtuse, if not pure fiction to begin with.
And yes, I owned an Atari, too.What model, and carts or 5 inch floppies?
Oh, cartridges, definitely. We had three to four dozen of them. Model? My god, man, that was 30 years ago. I've got no clue.
I know you're being facetious, but still. :) And yes, there were some text based stuff with incredibly simple graphics I had on floppy as well.
==Aelryinth
No keyboard on ours, we had the originals, no multitasking!
I didn't get to play real computer games until I went away to college and had access to computers all the time. Couldn't afford one when I was younger, and when my dad finally got one, it was way old and outdated, not fit for gaming.
==Aelryinth
Wow, I haven't even THOUGHT of the Commodore 64 in twenty years.
==Aelryinth
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Wayback Machine?
It is a site that has archived quite a bit (not all) the internet for several years. I have used it to research some very obscure sites.
http://archive.org/web/web.php
NOTE: To even get a English copy you had to custom order it from Wyrmhart and only during that 1 year period were they printed.
I do not care if it is in English or not. I just find the idea of an RPG that was 15+ years or more ahead of chainmail/D&D to be quite interesting. Chainmail was published in 1971. The games you shared were in print pre-1959. The fact I have never heard of them makes this very interesting to me. So again, any old links even if they are broken would be wonderful.
Thank You
So let me see if I got this right. I can get a feat that gives me a bonus feat so I can take a feat in addition to the feat on odd levels. Awesome.
The reason Why these games aren't under a copyright is the fact that at the time there was the fact that a copyright on a game of any kind was around 250+10 per year USD. If the country even had Copyright laws.
The only link I can find that even attempts to go anywhere besides the webpage not found screen redirects to an anti-piracy page similar to a shut down torrent site.
I just had to chime in that the first AD&D branded game that I know about was "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" That was 1982.
Heh and I played the crap out of that one - the sequel - 'treasures of tarmin' was a '3d map' first person maze adventure with inventory, stats, and everything. Honestly might have been a first for 'first person'
Not relevant indeed.
@Ckorik: If I remember correctly It was one of the first First Person Vantage Point games available on a Home Console.
Found an example today:
I know they cannot own equipment, and have to give up their material quest rewards to charity, but could a monk with VoP be granted permanency spell effects as rewards, aka "favors of gratitude" if the rewarding npc is/has access to wizard abilities? Or would this break the spirit of the feat?
Vow of Poverty is an alternate class ability. Not a feat. This caused much confusion in the thread from which this was taken.
I see. Fair enough, seems like maybe he just misspoke though. Or did the poster really believe it was a feat? (Suppose its an easy enough mistake to make if you are new)
Well, I have been playing D&D since 1974, and board games before that, along with wargames, etc. Thus, I am really a veteran, since I was playing since before other “veterans’ here were born. ;-)
There was nothing much like a RP game before D&D.
There was a Jousting game, where you were encouraged to make your own Coat of Arms, name & background, but none of those had any effect on the game, which was a sort of elaborate Rock/Scissors/paper one-on-one combat game.
Along the lines of Chainmail there were tabletop wargames, where your general/king etc may have had a made up personality and even get some sort of bonus for each victory. You can see how wargames morphed into Chainmail quite clearly, and others may have well gone down that road before.
But before Gygax/Arneson, NO ONE went down the Chainmail>D&D route. Other than the vague concepts I mentioned above there was nothing that today would be called a “fantasy role-playing game” (unless it’s that one where she plays the naughty nurse and I play…..)
Interestingly, I had expected the Choose Your Own Adventure books to be in reaction to D&D, but it turns out that the concept was invented around 1970 by the original author, who was unable to market it until the late 70s.
</tangent>
What truly constitutes a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. Cause in the early 50s there was a Murder Mystery book that had 5 outcomes/endings based on which of the options you choose at the end of the first 3 chapters.
Another week, another mistake.
I think he is refering to the esoteric training feat which is only attainable as part of a magical organisation it would be considered generally unavailable.
Inner Sea Magic Excerpt: Due to your membership in a spellcasting guild (and Fame score of 35) you gain a +3 bonus to your caster level with one spellcasting class of your choice and a +1 bonus to your caster level with another spellcasting class (up to a maximum of your character level). These bonuses grant you additional spells known and spells per day for your modified caster level.
yes, I wa talking about that feat. Is not acommon feat and is usually unavaliable but the DM coud just use it.
I don't see the mistake there... Maybe more context is needed...
They are incorrectly referring to an optional rule (organizational benefits) as feats.
Now I see it! Though that isn't referring to Class Abilities as Feats ;P
Yar!
... Though that isn't referring to Class Abilities as Feats ;P
I know you rib in jest (hurray for emoticons), but I feel the need to nitpick about your nitpick.
I've seen it happen again and again and again and again on these boards: People referring to class abilities, racial abilities, traits, and essentially anything else that is not a feat, as a feat.
^_^
*runs away giggling*
~P
I know that it is just I always ignored little errors like that... until this thread came about.
Though one thing that I have noticed is there are some strange relations when it comes to this.
IIRC there is a feat in one Book Though I think it is a campaign setting Book that allows one to gain a lesser version of a Rangers Favored Enemy or Favored terrain ability.