"Good Old Games"

Warning · 2011-09-25T11:28:30.000Z

I tried to play some of Dragonshard’s single-player missions but the voice acting was so bad…

Sebmojo · 2011-09-25T14:05:46.000Z

Syzygy:

ToEE is considered to be one of the best 1e modules.

It’s really not. Village of Hommlet is great (ToEE intro) but ToEE is a sprawling, muddled collection of dungeon rooms.

The Slaver series, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the GDQ series, White Plume Mountain all have a better rep.

John_Many_Jars · 2011-09-25T15:33:58.000Z

When we played Saltmarsh at the end of college (first D&D for me since 8th grade) my character went around asking everyone we met, “What is the sinister secret of Saltmarsh?” Never did find out IIRC.

peterb · 2011-09-25T16:20:07.000Z

Robert Sharp:

I really wish Troika had held on and used that engine on a real module. I just can’t bring myself to play through the beginning of TOEE. Why couldn’t they have done the Giants modules instead?

If ToEE had had a scenario builder, we’d still be playing it today.(footnote 1)

Oh well.

Footnote 1: And if it hadn’t been a crashy piece of garbage.

Robert_Sharp · 2011-09-25T16:45:02.000Z

Sebmojo:

It’s really not. Village of Hommlet is great (ToEE intro) but ToEE is a sprawling, muddled collection of dungeon rooms.

The Slaver series, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the GDQ series, White Plume Mountain all have a better rep.

Oddly enough, as a CRPG, ToEE is the opposite. The village is tedious and the temple is the meat. But that’s probably because there is no DM to help flush the village out in an interesting way.

White Plume would be great, yeah. But I would have loved either B3 (Palace of the Silver Princess) or X2 (Castle D’Amber). Those are my two favorite original modules. Neither is for AD&D, of course, but they were easily adopted, if desired.

Inverarity · 2011-09-25T20:19:30.000Z

Are you guys aware that Circle of 8 did a Keep on the Borderlands mod for ToEE?

Sebmojo · 2011-09-25T20:38:38.000Z

Robert Sharp:

Oddly enough, as a CRPG, ToEE is the opposite. The village is tedious and the temple is the meat. But that’s probably because there is no DM to help flush the village out in an interesting way.

White Plume would be great, yeah. But I would have loved either B3 (Palace of the Silver Princess) or X2 (Castle D’Amber). Those are my two favorite original modules. Neither is for AD&D, of course, but they were easily adopted, if desired.

God, Castle Amber was fantastically batshit.

I always loved Barrier Peaks, but that was probably just because it had rayguns. The map itself was a maze of identical 10’ cubes.

Ooh, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. That was another great module.

triggercut · 2011-09-25T21:39:48.000Z

Sebmojo:

God, Castle Amber was fantastically batshit.

I always loved Barrier Peaks, but that was probably just because it had rayguns. The map itself was a maze of identical 10’ cubes.

Ooh, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. That was another great module.

Who was the writer/designer of Castle Amber? Whomever it was…yeah, that was just a pinnacle of marrying great writing to game module design.

Syzygy · 2011-09-25T21:44:11.000Z

Sebmojo:

It’s really not. Village of Hommlet is great (ToEE intro) but ToEE is a sprawling, muddled collection of dungeon rooms.

The Slaver series, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, the GDQ series, White Plume Mountain all have a better rep.

GDQ is in a class of it’s own but I recall seeing ToEE brought up quite often in discussions of classic modules. Either way it was classic enough for WotC to do a “Return to…” series which is arguably the biggest shared experience module of the 3.0 (pre 3.5 era).

Also seems unfair to criticize ToEE’s design if you’re putting White Plume on a pedestal, which was a essentially series of unconnected novelty rooms, IIRC.

Giaddon · 2011-09-26T05:08:09.000Z

GOG, I need you to add the other Impressions city builders! I need you to do this.

Robert_Sharp · 2011-09-26T05:18:49.000Z

Just to clarify, I have no problem with ToEE as a module. I just didn’t think it was well suited for a CRPG. It left you with two very different aspects: the village, which many people found tedious in the video game, and the temple, which took a while to get too, but which many thought was the best part. Such a weak opening, especially when the game was so buggy, left it with bad word of mouth.

peterb · 2011-09-26T05:27:32.000Z

triggercut:

Who was the writer/designer of Castle Amber? Whomever it was…yeah, that was just a pinnacle of marrying great writing to game module design.

The snarky answer is “Edgar Allen Poe and Clark Ashton Smith”. The literal answer is “Tom Moldvay”.

zx81-Amd64 · 2011-09-26T05:37:02.000Z

I nearly got the bunch, but i do still have all the BG games(and expansions) and the special edition Neverwinter Nights(the atari one) on disk, so i ended up with just Planescape Torment, a game i’ve wanted but somehow missed getting this last decade or so.

GoG might be my new best DD system, it does everything 100% correct.

wigglestick · 2011-09-26T09:39:32.000Z

I wound up buying the lot, except for PS:T which I already own. I played and loved the first IWD back in the day, so I’m looking forward to replaying that and playing the second. Also, I’ve never played any BG except for mucking around on a friend’s PC for about twenty minutes, so that should be pretty awesome as well.

Side note, my GOG.com account is 1,111 days old today, and this makes me happy.

BrianRubin · 2011-09-26T09:48:09.000Z

wigglestick:

Side note, my GOG.com account is 1,111 days old today, and this makes me happy.

Hey, me too, awesome!

Omniscia · 2011-09-26T12:17:51.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Hey, me too, awesome!

Aww, mine’s only 1,105 days old.

BrianRubin · 2011-09-26T12:26:33.000Z

Omniscia:

Aww, mine’s only 1,105 days old.

Get off my lawn, youngin’ ;)

Relayer71 · 2011-09-26T12:43:27.000Z

I’m just a itty wittle baby (744 days).

XenoCrash · 2011-09-26T13:03:09.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Hey, me too, awesome!

Dammit! Mine’s only 1110 days old :(

RichVR · 2011-09-26T14:10:48.000Z