I had mentioned in my first experience with Moria that it was a game that introduced several new things. One of these was the ability for your character to join a Guild.
The four guilds are; Thieves Guild, The Brotherhood, Union of Knights, and Circle of Wizards. Their respective skills are: cunning, piety, valor, and wizardry.
To join a guild, you must have a guild skill of at least 20. You are admitted at the rank of apprentice. To raise your guild rank, you need five bags of gold, one million gold coins, in your account and must have the skill needed for that rank. The skills are; apprentice 20, journeyman 30, counselor 40, and master 50. The guild master is the master with the highest skill in the guild.
Each guild confers a unique advantage on its members.
Members of The Brotherhood can instantly raise the vitality of the group.
Members of the Circle of Wizards can teleport themselves (and a group they are leading) back to the city.
Members of the Union of Knights take less damage and have a chance of beheading a monster with a single blow.
Members of the Thieves Guild have a better chance of finding magic items that been cunningly hidden in the treasure chests.
I am currently exploring the 7th level of the Forest and have raised my Valor to 27. So I journeyed into the city and joined the Union of Knights. I am now an apprentice to the guild in good standing.
Two other things that I’ve realized since I’ve been exploring. You can establish a camp anywhere you’d like within the dungeon complex and you can store gold and food there. Now at first I didn’t see the benefit to this and have not bothered to do so; but now that I have joined the Union of Knights; one of the benefits I have as a guild member is to be teleported to my camp from the guild within the city. This is quite a benefit because you absolutely must monitor your food and water in the game. Now you can find watering holes to replenish your water and you can also obtain food by killing bears and other edible creatures; but it is never enough to be completely comfortable so periodically you must venture out of the dungeon and make your way to the city. The ability to teleport to your camp helps you to circumvent having to return all the way back down into the dungeon.
The second thing I’ve discovered is that you literally need to walk through a secret door in order to discover it. This is a bit different from the previous Plato system games that we’ve reviewed.
Well now that I have my Union card; I am heading back into the dungeon. Wish me luck.
……the computer role-playing game was invented…..and it was good.
Many an adventurer armed with only a sword and a lantern have started their auspicious journey. I have neither of those things but I AM armed with an imagination, passion, and a keyboard. I embark on my own adventure with these items firmly in hand in an attempt to document my journey into the retro game experience.
The mission that I set for myself was this: I wanted to systematically go back in time and play and experiment with as many different games in the fantasy and role-playing genre as humanly possible. I knew that I wanted a heavy and almost exclusive emphasis on computer role-playing games but that I would want to take a few side quests into older platform games as well. I also knew that fantasy literature and the sword & sorcery genre would work it’s way into my blog posts as well.
I knew that if I wanted to do this that I would need the right tools and equipment. I realize that at some point emulators will come into play but I wanted to experience these games on their original systems if possible. So I made a fortitude check, found a small treasure hoard in a deep, dank dungeon, and set out to build a place where this grand quest would take place: I built a retro gaming room.
My secret underground laboratory
Now that I had an underground laboratory and tools in place; I realized that I needed a bard to record my journey and sing of my exploits. Unable to find a bard on LinkedIn; I realized that I would need to find another medium in which to organize my thoughts and record my exploits.
While spending a great amount of time ruminating what to do and also researching old games; I realized that what I needed to do was create a blog. This blog will serve to document my journey into the retro game experience. It will especially focus on computer role-playing games (CRPGs) and the fantasy genre. They say that imitation is the best form of flattery, and while this idea has been incubating in my mind for some time, it was early pioneers who started this same adventure quest that finally gave me the courage to document and share my own journey and passions. Pioneers like Chester Bolingbroke of The CRPG Adddict and the Trickster of The Adventure Gamer have inspired me and given me the courage to try this on my own.
Do we really need another blog concentrating on retro gaming and CRPGs when others have already done it so well? The answer to that, I hope, is that there is a huge community of adventure game fans who are extremely passionate and clearly these games mean something to people. Many are extremely eager to share their stories and wax poetically about their own past glories and adventures. I am hoping over time to build a lasting community and relationships.
Why do I favor CRPGs over any other kind of game and why am I interested in playing games from the 70s, 80s, 90s? Nostalgia is a part of it as many of us want to play the games that we grew up with. The computer role playing genre is even more exciting, than say a platform game, because it provides a story which leads to an immersive experience. It fuels the imagination and you cannot possibly stop playing the character until you complete the whole game. The story has adventures, mysteries, and magic which brings our wildest imaginations to life. There is a sense of achievement and experience when finishing a good story.
Another reason I love CRPGS and I suspect so many others do too is that we are never fully settled with the characters that we create. As the game progresses we thrill in the constant upgrading of gear, equipment, powers, and spells. By the time we reach the end of the game we are much stronger in powers and abilities then when we started. And don’t even get me started on the cool adventuring swag you may find. There is a great sense of accomplishment starting with no experience and nothing to your name to reaching epic powers and status.
Many of these CRPGS are a struggle and can be very difficult and the player tends to develop a bond or sense of connection between themselves and the character they are playing. The idea of saving the world from a great evil and doing something heroic strikes at the very heart of many fantasy stories.
I have a passion for sword & sorcery literature, pulp classics, and have been a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons. So when these mediums began to appear on computers the bait had already been set and I was hooked!
These are some of the reasons why my retro gaming experience will focus heavily on fantasy and CRPGs in general.
The Quest Rules
If I am going to legitimize this in some way, like my predecessors before me, I feel like I have to set some rules into place. I recognize that these rules are a bit “loose” but I think fewer constraints give us greater flexibility and freedom.
1. I am going to attempt to play these CRPGs in chronological order according to the year in which they were created. This is a huge rule and decision. It is a great organizational idea since there are so many games to choose from and since we have few other constraints. I will use Mobygames, Wikipedia, and a few other sites as my main resources. You can find links to these under Side Quests here on the site.
2. All CRPGs on ANY platform can appear on my list. I am also not limiting myself to commercial games but will be including browser-based games and freeware. Any and all console CRPGs are also fair game. I have spent a great amount of time building a retro gaming room specifically for this task (which will be the subject of a future blog post). I also reserve the right to sneak a retro platform game in every once in awhile.
3. No cheating or walkthroughs. However long it takes me to puzzle and work my way through these than so be it. I realize what a daunting quest this is but I do not want to rush the process or dilute it by using walkthroughs. I will only use the internet and others reading this blog to solve technical issues.
4. If I were much younger I would argue that I am “entitled” to win every game that I attempt to play. If others have won shouldn’t I deserve to win too? Or I might suggest to you that every player should get a trophy. The sad reality is that I am likely not going to be able to beat every game that I attempt to play. When it seems that I am at a dead end or that the game stops becoming fun; I will move on and can always come back to revisit where I left off at a later date.
5. I would like to develop some sort of rating or review system that is consistent but I am still ruminating on how I want that to look. Perhaps as a community you can offer some suggestions or we could even create a rubric together.
5. You will find that I am a retro game collector and so if there is still a commercial version of the game that I am playing I will buy it to add to my collection.
So armed with a sense of purpose, imagination, passion, a keyboard, and a secret underground lab, and a loose set of rules I now embark on my journey. I hope it is one that you decide to take with me. After all, CRPGs can also be about teamwork and bonding. In my experience, you won’t find a more passionate group of people than fantasy gamers. So having said that….what do you say? Let’s be on our way!
Next Blog Post: My own background and THE game that got me hooked on CRPGs
