Levels Are For Video Games

Today, "leveling up" is a central feature of countless video games, from sprawling open-world RPGs to mobile idle clickers. As anyone who reads this blog of course knows, levels come from Dungeons & Dragons, which introduced them half a century ago as a way to mark a character's growth in power and ability through play over time. What began as a simple abstraction to track advancement has since become a core gameplay loop in video and computer games, where clear, incremental progress has come to be seen as essential to keeping players engaged. 

As video games came to outshine the tabletop games from which they borrowed mechanical concepts like levels, it was perhaps inevitable that tabletop RPGs would return the compliment by inflecting their own designs with assumptions shaped by digital play. Over time, many adopted video game-inspired approaches to advancement: faster progression, more frequent rewards, and clearly defined “power-ups” that echo the dopamine loops of their digital descendants. The result is that some players now approach tabletop RPGs expecting the same steady drip of mechanical achievement they get from a screen, treating levels, feats, and skill boosts not as optional frameworks but as the very point of play. This feedback loop between mediums has reshaped how many people think about character advancement, often narrowing it to the accumulation of stats rather than the growth of an in-game persona, his relationships, or his impact on the wider setting. It’s also made me increasingly skeptical, if not outright critical, of levels themselves.

Before we get too far, let me be clear: this post isn’t an attack on levels. They’ve been a part of tabletop RPGs since 1974 and I'm not advocating for their abandonment. In the Gygaxo-Arnesonian conception of levels, a character can cast more spells, survive more wounds, and fight more fearsome foes as he advances. In this conception, levels bring a sense of scale and direction to campaigns and help frame a rough arc of a character's growth after the fashion of, say, Conan's rise from a young, inexperienced warrior to a battle-hardened general of Aquilonia (and, eventually, its king). It was, therefore, only natural that early computer RPGs, like Ultima and Wizardry would follow suit. Computers are excellent at tracking numbers, after all, and early video games needed straightforward mechanics.

As the years went by, the leveling paradigm took over. Players of video games came to expect a steady stream of mechanical rewards for their investment of time. Kill monsters, gain experience, level up. It’s a feedback loop as familiar and addictive as a slot machine and just as tightly engineered. With the massive success of MMORPGs and action-RPGs, the model has became entrenched and, unsurprisingly, it has filtered back into tabletop gaming. Many players now approach tabletop RPGs with the assumption that leveling up, or some equivalent form of mechanical advancement, is not only expected but essential.

And that brings back to something I've been feeling for some time: tabletop RPGs don’t need levels. In fact, they don’t need mechanical advancement at all.

Plenty of games, some of them quite old, have already demonstrated this. Consider my favorite roleplaying game, Traveller. Characters in Traveller begin the game with their skills already in place, having completed careers before adventuring begins. There is no leveling system. Characters can improve, albeit very slowly, with years of in-game training, but mechanical advancement is not central to the experience of playing Traveller. Instead, the game focuses on exploration, commerce, politics, and survival in an indifferent universe. What matters is what one's character does within the setting, not how his numbers go up.

The same could even be said for a game like Call of Cthulhu, where the main arc of a character’s life isn’t defined by rising power but by gradual decline – into madness, death, or at best, retirement from delving into the Mythos. He might get better at Library Use or Spot Hidden, but he’ll never become an investigator resistant, never mind immune, to cosmic horror. That’s not the point of the game. Even RuneQuest, though it includes skill advancement through use, eschews levels entirely. A seasoned Gloranthan character is still vulnerable, still mortal. Advancement, when it comes, is more than a matter of increasing skill percentiles, but rather one of reputation, relationships, position within the world of the Third Age.

These games remind us that the real power of tabletop RPGs lies not in mechanics, but in meaning. Unlike a video game, which must quantify progress to function, a tabletop RPG has no such constraint. The game lives in conversation and imagination. If a Traveller character becomes the right hand man of the subector duke, or earns the ire of an Ine Givar terrorist cell, or uncovers the secrets of the Ancients, those are significant achievements. No hit points were gained, no XP awarded, yet the character has advanced in ways no level system can fully capture.

This is not to say that mechanical advancement is inherently bad, because I've used to good effect for decades. Leveling provides structure and creates a sense of forward motion. These are good things. For some players, it also scratches an itch that is very real. However, when mechanical growth becomes the primary – only – form of advancement, it distorts the nature of tabletop play. Players start to see everything through the lens of optimization. They choose actions based on what yields the most mechanical benefit, rather than what makes the most sense for their character or the world he inhabits.

I’ve seen it happen; I suspect most of us have. A party bypasses an intriguing mystery because it offers no clear reward. A player makes choices like navigating a skill tree, optimizing for mechanical advantage rather than what fits the world or character. That mindset can make sense in a video game, where content is finite and progress must be explicitly marked. But tabletop RPGs aren’t software. They aren’t bound by code or limited to scripted outcomes. Their flexibility is their greatest strength. A character can change the world – or be changed by it – without his stats shifting at all.

If there’s one thing my House of Worms campaign has taught me, it’s to lean into that flexibility. We should reward clever thinking, bold risks, and engagement with the setting over mechanical upgrades. The most satisfying kind of advancement comes from caring about a character and his place in the world, not just from tallying experience points. When advancement does happen, it should feel earned not because the rules dictate it, but because something significant has happened.

Levels are great. Experience points can be fun. But they are tools, not goals. Tabletop RPGs aren’t about reaching 10th level. They’re about entering and exploring an imaginary world through an equally imaginary character. What matters isn’t how many hit points your fighter has, but what you do with them. Success might mean founding a colony, retiring in disgrace, making a terrible bargain with an otherworldly power, or changing the course of an empire. These are the kinds of outcomes that emerge from choices, consequences, and collaboration with the referee and other players, not from ticking boxes on a character sheet. Advancement in a tabletop RPG is ultimately about meaning, not math.

Those aren’t the kinds of achievements a level-up screen can show you and that’s exactly what makes them worth chasing – or, increasingly, it’s what keeps me playing after all these years.

The Articles of Dragon: "The Dragon Magazine Combat Computer"

Dragon magazine is, of course, most remembered for its many excellent articles published over the course of the three decades of its existence. This entire series of posts is a testament to just how many great articles there were – or at least how many articles captured my youthful imagination to the extent that I still remember them today, long after Dragon has ceased publication. However, there were other aspects of the magazine that I still recall fondly to this day, chief among them being the cardboard inserts found in the centerfolds of certain issues. These inserts were most frequently used for game boards, but occasionally they served a different purpose.

Perhaps the most memorable example of this occurred in issue #74 (June 1983), which included "The Dragon Magazine Combat Computer," designed by Laura and Tracy Hickman and brought to life by Roger Raupp. The titular Combat Computer is a pair of cardboard discs that, after being cut out, can be placed one on top of the other and connected with a brass paper fastener. When assembled, the topmost disc (the plate) can spin atop the lower disc (the base). Doing so enables the user to calculate the number needed to hit for any AD&D character of any class or level against any armor class. The Combat Computer even aids the user in making use of "weapon vs AC" adjustments that most people in my experience generally ignored.

Here's what the plate of the Combat Computer looks like, courtesy of the Dragonlance Saga website (yes, I am aware of the irony):

The Combat Computer is a clever piece of analog technology, from the days before desktop computers were commonplace. I absolutely loved it when I got my copy of issue #74 in the mail and made ready use of it. My main complaint was how flimsy it was. After months of carrying it around with me, the cardstock on which was printed started to bend and tear, rendering it less useful. To some extent, I'm to blame for this. I should have taken more care with it. I also probably should have headed the article's suggestion of gluing it to a second sheet of cardboard for increase durability.

Interestingly, the RPGA sold a product called the AD&D Fighting Wheel in its member-exclusive gift catalog that was very similar to the Combat Computer but made of plastic. I've never seen the Fighting Wheel for myself, only photos, so I can't speak to the quality of its manufacture. However, I imagine that simply being made of plastic would be a significant improvement over the Combat Computer. Even so, I retain many fond memories of the Combat Computer, many of them tinged with my current ambivalence about the tradeoffs we've made in embracing computers in nearly every aspect of life, even our hobbies – but that's a topic for another post ...

Found It!

Last week, I mentioned a computer program called TravGen that I used to have and lost in the process of upgrading my computer. After poking around online, I found a link to the program on Frank Filz's Wine Dark Rift Classic Traveller Campaign website. I've downloaded it and have been having fun playing around with it over the last few days. It's a great little mini-game with which to procrastinate when I should be doing other things and I highly recommend it to anyone else looking for something similar. I also recommend Frank's website, which has lots of interesting ideas and resources for players and referees of classic Traveller.  

Crypt of the Undead

Did anyone own this game? I ask, because I very vividly remember the advertisements for it, like this one that appeared in issue #69 of Dragon (January 1983). Epyx was a very prolific publisher of early computer games, some of which I did actually played, but Crypt of the Undead was not one of them. From what I've been able to gather from online sources, it wasn't all that good. If so, that's disappointing, given how evocative this ad is. I'd much rather learn that it's a forgotten gem, so, if you owned or played it, I'd like to know more.

Retrospective: Ultima

Regular readers will recall that, growing up, I did not have a personal computer. That's why I spent so much time at the homes of friends who did. Indeed, it was only because of those friends that I was able to play such foundational computer roleplaying games as Telengard, Wizardry, and Temple of Apshai. Even in college, I didn't own a computer, so I continued the practice of using others' computers until the dawn of the 1990s, when I finally entered the modern world and at last got one of my own. 

During my college years, there were two CRPGs I remember playing with great enthusiasm: Pool of Radiance and Ultima – or Ultima I as it had been rebranded in 1986. Ultima first came out in 1981, but I don't believe I was aware of it at the time. In any case, I never had the chance to play it until several years later, well after it had spawned a series of sequels. Consequently, everything I'll say in this post pertains to the 1986 version, published by Origin Systems. If there are any significant differences between it and the earlier version(s) of the game, please let me know in the comments.

Like so many early computer games, Ultima had an interesting instruction manual with some impressive artwork. The manual laid out the premise of the game as well as the parameters under which it operates. It does so almost entirely as if it were a document being read by the player's character. Consequently, the information contained within (mostly) lacks any reference to game mechanics or things that the character would not know. Some of it is even written as if an unnamed person is speaking directly to the character, who is addressed as "Noble One" and assumed to be the hero who will save the realm of Sosaria from the depredations of necromancer, Mondain.

Like most computer RPGs, then or now, Ultima owes a lot to Dungeons & Dragons in its overall conception and gameplay. However, unlike, say, Wizardry, it does not include the possibility of controlling an entire party of adventurers, which is something that was added in its sequels. Instead, the player controls a single character, whom he creates before starting his adventure. A character has six attributes that are nearly identical to those in D&D. Likewise, the races available are familiar ones – human, elf, dwarf, and bobbit (halfling). The same is true for the professions, consisting of fighter, cleric, wizard, and thief. In short, it's all pretty standard stuff and nothing that someone who'd been playing pen-and-paper RPGs would have found the slightest bit unusual.

In addition to being a foul necromancer, the aforementioned Mondain is also invulnerable to attack, thanks to his possession of a powerful artifact, the Gem of Immortality. Finding a way to circumvent the effects of the gem is thus the character's main quest throughout Ultima. To succeed in this quest, the character must travel throughout the realm, interact with NPCs, and explore dungeons and other locales. In the process, the character will acquire wealth, better gear, and experience points, allowing him to become more powerful. Again, it's all pretty standard stuff that we've seen many times before.

The "standard" nature of all this was simultaneously an asset and a drawback to Ultima, at least from my perspective at the time. I appreciated that it was pretty easy to pick up and play. Having played D&D for some time beforehand, there was very little in Ultima that surprised me. On the other hand, there weren't really any elements of the game that wowed me. I might have thought differently, if I had encountered it upon its original release in 1981. By the time I discovered it, in 1988, I'd already seen a number of other games that did what it did, often better. For example, Pool of Radiance seemed to me to be a much better implementation of the core concepts of tabletop RPGs in digital form – and it used the official AD&D rules to boot!

Of course, I still played Ultima and enjoyed myself. Even in the midst of my college studies, I still had a lot of spare time to waste on computer games. Consequently, I don't rate Ultima quite as highly as it probably deserves. Certainly, the game went on to become a very successful and influential CRPG series. To this day, I still know lots of people with very fond memories of the game and its sequels. Meanwhile, its spin-off, Ultima Online, released in 1997, was one of the first truly successful massive multiplayer online roleplaying games (or MMORPGs – a term coined by Richard "Lord British" Garriott, the creator of Ultima). For that reason alone, its place in the history of computer RPGs is assured.

The Bishop Returns

Another piece of Will McLean's Wizardry artwork featuring the bishop (and the Lord).

Hidden Details

In a comment to my earlier post about level titles beyond Dungeons & Dragons, Tamás Illés pointed out that the later installments of the computer game Wizardry included level titles (as did EverQuest). Not being well versed in the history of the Wizardry, this comment naturally piqued my interest. I spent some time yesterday looking into the matter by seeking out scans of the original manuals online. In doing so, I not only confirmed the truth of the comment – more on that in a future post – but also stumbled across something equally interesting.

I never owned Wizardry myself. When I played it, I did so on a friend's computer after having watched him play it. Consequently, I don't think I ever saw the game's manual or, if I did, I have no recollection of doing so. That's too bad, because the manual contains notable artwork, like this one, depicting the four basic character classes:

Then, there's this illustration, depicting the four elite character classes:

Leaving aside the very odd illustration of the samurai – he looks more like a soldier in Cromwell's New Model Army than a Japanese warrior to me – what immediately caught my eye was the bishop on the far right. He reminded me of this famous illustration from the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:

I initially assumed that the Wizardry illustration was an allusion or homage to the DMG piece, since it seemed unlikely that the distinct appearance of the bishop's "miter" was an independent creation (unless perhaps they were both referencing a third source). However, the question was very quick resolved when I finally noticed the artist's signature – McLean. This was clearly Will McLean, the very same artist who provided all those humorous little cartoons scattered throughout the Dungeon Masters Guide (though he is erroneously credited in the Wizardry manual as "Will Mclain."

This discovery made me happy, because I've been a fan of Will McLean's cartoons for years. I'll post some additional examples of them in an upcoming post.

"You're a Player of Role-Playing Games"

Following up on yesterday's post about the "Appendix N" of Temple of Apshai, let's look at the paragraphs that follow, because, in many ways, they're even more interesting. After asking the reader whether he was familiar with any of stories, books, and characters cited, the game's introduction then declares:

If any or all of your answers are "yes," you're a player of role-playing games – or you ought to be. (If your answers are all "no," you have either stepped through the looking glass by mistake, or fate knows your destiny better than you.)

As I said, interesting. In particular, I think it's notable that the writer (Jon Freeman) saw an almost necessary connection between being familiar with fantasy literature and being a player of RPGs – as if you can't be one without also being the other. He continues:

Role-playing games (RPGs) allows you to step outside a world grown too prosaic for magic and monsters, doomed cities and damsels in distress ... and enter instead a universe in which only quick wit, the strength of your sword arm, and a strangely carved talisman around your neck may be the only things separating you from the pharaoh's treasure – or the mandibles of a giant mantis.

The standard (non-computer) role-playing game is not, in its commercial incarnation, much more than a rulebook – a set of guidelines a person uses to create a world colored by myth and legend, populated by brawny heroes, skilled swordsmen, skulking thieves, cunning wizards, hardy Amazons, and comely wenches, and filled with treasures, spell-forged blades, flying carpets, rings of power, loathsome beasts, dark towers, and cities that stood in the Thousand Nights and a Night if not The Outline of History. 

Freeman writes very evocatively, doesn't he? Old school RPG fans will also, no doubt, approve of his description of a rulebook as "a set of guidelines." 

Role-playing games are not so much "played" as they are experienced. Instead of manipulating an army of chessman about an abstract but visible board, or following a single piece around and around a well-defined track, collecting $200 every time you pass GO, in RPGs you venture into an essentially unknown world with a single piece – your alter ego for the game, a character at home in a world of demons and darkness, dragons and dwarves. You see with the eyes of your character a scene described by the "author" of the adventure – and no more. 

Again, evocative stuff. Reading this, you can really tell that Freeman is passionate about the then-new hobby of roleplaying games.

There is no board in view, no chance squares to inspect; the imaginary landscape exists only in the notebooks of the world's creator (commonly called a referee or dunjonmaster) and, gradually, in the imaginations of your fellow players. As you set off in quest of fame and fortune with with those other player/characters, you are both a character in and a reader of an epic you are helping to create. Your character does whatever you wish him to do, subject to his human (or near-human) capabilities and the vagaries of chance. Fight, flee, or parley; take the high road or low; the choice is yours. You may climb a mountain or go around it, but since at the top may be a rock, a roc's egg, or a roc, you can find challenge and conflict without fighting with your fellow players, who are usually (in several senses) in the same boat.

This is very good stuff and, if I may, very much in keeping with the philosophy of gaming that's been championed in the Old School scene over the last fifteen years or so. 

Role-playing games can (and often do) become, both for you and your character, a way of life. Your character does not stop existing at the end of a game session; normally, you use the same character again and again until he dies for a final time and cannot be brought back to life by even the sorcerous means typically available. In the meantime, he will have grown richer on the treasure he (you) has accumulated from adventure ro adventure, may have purchased new and better equipment, won magic weapons to help him fight better or protective devices to keep him safe. As he gains experience from his adventures, he grows in power, strength, and skill – although the mechanics and terminology of this process vary greatly from one set of rules to another.  

The remainder of Freeman's introduction pertains mostly to the ways that Temple of Apshai alleviates some of the burden typically placed on the shoulders of players and referee alike, which is understandable, as part of his purpose is to demonstrate the value of computer RPGs over "standard" ones. Even so, what he says about roleplaying games – in 1979, please recall – still holds interest more than four decades later, especially to those of who prefer the "old ways." Indeed, I think it's all the more interesting when ones considers where this introduction appeared and who its intended audience was.

Temple of Apshai's Appendix N?

Here's the opening paragraph to introduction of the user manual from 1979's Temple of Apshai. This section was reprinted verbatim in the manual to The Temple of Apshai Trilogy six years later. 

Did you grow up in the company of the Brothers Grimm, Snow White, The Red Fairy Book, The Flash Gordon serials, The Three Musketeers, the knights of the Round Table, or any of the three versions of The Thief of Baghdad? Have you read The Lord of the Rings, The Worm Ouroboros, The Incomplete Enchanter, or Conan the Conqueror? Have you ever wished you could cross swords – just for fun – with Cyrano or D'Artagnan, or stand by their sides in the chill light of dawn, awaiting the arrival of the Cardinal's Guard? Ever wondered how you'd have done against the Gorgon, the Hydra, the bane of Heorot Hall, or the bull that walks like a man? Would you have sailed with Sinbad or Captain Blood, sought passage on the ship of Ishtar, or drunk of the Well at World's End? Did Aphrodite make Paris an offer you couldn't refuse? Would you seek a red-hued maiden beneath the hurtling moons of Barsoom, or walk the glory road with "Dr. Balsamo," knowing it might be a one-way street?

Written by Jon Freeman, co-designer of the game, this paragraph is filled with literary references that it could almost be taken as the Appendix N of Temple of Apshai. I say "almost," because the paragraph is not meant to describe the specific influences upon the game itself so much as to describe the kinds of stories, books, and characters that might serve as introductions both to fantasy as a genre and to fantasy roleplaying. In that respect, it's less useful in understanding Temple of Apshai than it is in understanding what, in 1979, might have been considered the "must reads" of fantasy – and the kinds of literature that had served as the seed beds of roleplaying.

Retrospective: Temple of Apshai

When I was in the seventh grade, a new kid joined my class and he soon became my best friend. He was also an early adopter of personal computers, owning a TRS-80. I didn't own a computer of any kind – and wouldn't until the early '90s – so I spent a lot of time over his house. admiring this wonder of the dawning Information Age. We played a lot of games on that "Trash-80," most of them not very good or memorable. However, a handful do stick out in my mind as being both, chief among them being Temple of Apshai.

Temple of Apshai is one of the earliest computer dungeoncrawlers, not to mention one of the first have graphics, albeit very primitive graphics. For many computer aficionados at the time, I suspect that was one of the biggest draws about the game. For me, though, the mere existence of a computer RPG at all was more than enough to attract my attention. That I'd also seen advertisements for Temple of Apshai in the pages of Dragon probably played a role, too. In those days, I was easily captivated by ads and those Dragon magazine ads, showing an adventurer fighting some antmen, intrigued me.

Temple of Apshai was developed and published by Epyx, the company that also produced Crush, Crumble & Chomp (another game I'd first seen advertised in Dragon). Its earliest version appeared in 1979 and, from what I understand, came on a cassette type, a format that prevented player progress from being saved. My friend and I were playing on a later version that included 5¼-inch floppy disks, thank goodness. Temple of Apshai was already difficult enough as it is. I can't imagine trying to play it without the ability to save.

The game's premise is simple: enter and explore the ruined Temple of Apshai, the insect god, in the hopes of finding treasure and magic items. The instruction manual does provide some cursory background information about the founding of the temple and its relationship to the Temple of Geb, the god of earth. But the play of the game doesn't really make use of, let alone depend upon, this information, which is mostly about exploring – and surviving – a four-level dungeon consisting of more than 200 rooms and inhabited by two dozen different types of monsters, most of which are (appropriately) giant insects, along with a handful of slimes and undead.

As I said above, the game's graphics were quite primitive, not much better than Atari's Adventure, which appeared only a little later. Even so, I was quite impressed with being able to see the layout of the dungeon rooms and corridors, in contrast to games like Zork, which relied entirely on text to present their in-game environments. The limitations of technology at the time being what they were, your character and the dangers he faces appear as simple pixelated shapes rather than as something genuinely representational. Later versions of the game improved upon this, but that occurred long after my friend and I played the game.

Like all early computer games, Temple of Apshai clearly shows inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, but it has a number of features that remind me a bit of RuneQuest. A character had six ability scores – Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Intuition, and Ego – whose scores ranged from 3 to 18, just as in D&D. However, unlike D&D, there are no character classes. All characters are effectively fighters, since, aside from magic items, no magic powers or spells exist in the game. Further, combat and other actions can fatigue a character, who must rest in order to regain his energy. Armor lessens damage suffered, while shields make a character harder to hit. None of this is remarkable to old RPG hands, but, for a computer game of this, it's pretty sophisticated stuff.

Because of its graphical limitations, Temple of Apshai could not visually distinguish the contents of one room from another. Instead, each room, trap, and treasure have an entry in the game's instruction manual to which the player must refer in order to get a more detailed description of what his character is presumably encountering. For example, the first room of the dungeon is described as follows:

The smooth stonework of the passageway floor shows that advanced methods were used in its creation. A skeleton sprawls on the floor just inside the door, a bony hand still clutching a rusty dagger, outstretched toward the door to safety. A faint roaring sound can be heard from the far end of the passage.

This is very much like a "real" dungeon, which is to say, one a referee might create beforehand, with keyed room descriptions to which he'd refer in play. I don't think I appreciated this at the time, but, in retrospect, I find it fascinating. I recall reading somewhere that Temple of Apshai's designer, Jon Freeman, was inspired to create the game after he'd spent several years trying to find ways to use computers to aid referees in running D&D campaigns. If true, it's yet another reminder of just how important and influential Dungeons & Dragons has been on the growth and development of computer games and, by extension, computer technology itself. 

Like so many early computer RPGs, I don't think I could play Temple of Apshai today. That's no knock against the game itself or its deserved place of honor in the history of computer games. Rather, it's because you can't go home again, however much you might want to do so. What enthralled and amazed my friend and I in 1982 is not something that would do so today – but it was an amazing game in its day and I'm glad to have had the chance to play it.

The Book of Apshai

Later this week, I'll be posting a Retrospective on the early dungeoncrawler Temple of Apshai. While doing some research into this important computer game, I was reminded that, in 1985, publisher Epyx released Temple of Apshai Trilogy, which collected all three games in the series and graphically updated them for the newest generation of personal computers. Temple of Apshai Trilogy also included a game manual entitled The Book of Apshai whose interior contained, in addition to instructions on how to install and play the game, some truly amazing art by Mike Mott. 

Before getting to the interior art, here's the color cover art of the game box itself, courtesy of Ken Macklin. This image is reproduced, in black and white form, on the cover of The Book of Apshai.

Inside the book, we get to Mike Mott's work, like this piece showing an adventurer facing off against one of the game's iconic Antmen.

Speaking of Antmen, here's one lurking in the dark near a set of stairs the same adventurer is now descending.

The adventurer appears yet again, this time waiting around a stone pillar, sword drawn, as some vicious monster prepares to attack.

As in Dungeons & Dragons, torches are very important in Temple of Apshai. 

Here's a nifty little illustration from a section at the end of The Book of Apshai where the concept of roleplaying games is explained to an audience that, even in 1985, might still not understand it. The section is worthy of a post on its own, but I'll leave that for later.

I know nothing of Mike Mott, the artist behind these terrific illustrations. Does anyone have any details about him or his career? His artwork is both very good and very evocative, the kind of thing that often appeared in computer game manuals at the time. Just looking at it as I wrote this post was strangely inspiring, which is what good gaming artwork should be.

Against the Black Priory

Back at the start of April, I wrote about my inability to replay the old AD&D computer game, Pool of Radiance. The difficulty lay primarily in its user interface, which was clunky and difficult to use on a contemporary computer. Likewise, the graphics, which looked fine on the screen in the late 1980s, did not translate well on a better monitor with a higher resolution. Consequently, I found it nigh impossible to play, let alone enjoy, Pool of Radiance again (or likely any of the other AD&D computer RPGs from that era). That's a shame, because I'm a fan of computer roleplaying games and am always on the lookout for enjoyable ones.

Fortunately, I stumbled across Skald: Against the Black Priory, a brand new (released May 2024) computer RPG inspired by the 8-bit CRPGs of old, while introducing aspects of modern design to make it more playable on contemporary machines. Though Skald no doubt took a lot of inspiration from games like Bard's Tale – likely explaining its title – one of the things that sets it apart in my opinion is the combination of sword-and-sorcery and cosmic horror of its narrative. Think Robert E. Howard's "Worms of the Earth" or Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea stories and you have a good idea of the kind of thing I'm talking about.

I've enjoyed my time playing the game. It's party-based (with up to six characters) and uses a top-down perspective, in keeping with its inspirations. There are lots of little details hidden throughout the game, both to assist you in your quests and to paint a picture of the overall setting. The game is quite unforgiving at times (again, in keeping with its inspirations). Not only are enemies tough, especially at low levels, but there are some choices you can make that result in automatic death. Though its interface is better suited to modern sensibilities, the game itself is quite old school in its deadliness (though there is an option for "narrative play," if you aren't interested in a challenge).

All in all, I have almost entirely positive feelings about Skald: Against the Black Priory. My biggest complaints are minor (the combat system can be grindy) and are outweighed by the game's cleverness and atmosphere. Playing through it has definitely whetted my appetite for more games like this. Now, I just need to find them ...

Slaying Monsters Should Be Mostly Fun and Games

Can You Go Home Again?

Despite my preference for playing RPGs with a group of friends, I've long enjoyed video and computer games. In fact, over the past Christmas holiday season, I finally completed Legend of Grimrock, a computer game I bought more than a decade ago and never finished. The premise of Legend of Grimrock is that the your party of four characters have been accused of crimes they (probably) didn't commit and must serve their sentence within the dungeons of Mount Grimrock. If they somehow survive its dangers, they will be absolved of their crimes. Of course, no one has ever escaped Mount Grimrock, so the odds of their doing so are not good.

I had a lot of fun with Legend of Grimrock (and, earlier this year, its sequel). It's a tough, occasionally frustrating dungeon whose challenges are a mix of puzzles, traps, resource management, and, of course, combat. In fact, I had such a good time playing it that I experienced a little bit of sadness when I finished the game. I wanted there to be more and there wasn't, so I naturally set out to find other games that might scratch the same itch. Surprisingly, there weren't a lot of computer or video games out there that had quite what I was looking for – at least not current video games (by which I mean, games released within the last decade or so). 

Fortunately, fondness for and appreciation of the products of earlier eras is not limited to the realm of tabletop roleplaying games. Indeed, I suspect there is probably even more nostalgia for old video and computer games, if only because of their greater popularity and reach. In recent years, quite a few publishers have made their older games available once again, after making small updates so that they'll run on modern hardware. That's when the idea struck me: why don't I play one of those older games – go right back to "the source," so to speak? Surely that would help me over my feeling of letdown after completing Legend of Grimrock.

So, I picked up a copy of Pool of Radiance, a computer game for which I have fond memories. Not only was this the first computer game to make use of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, it came out during my time away at college. I never owned the game myself – I didn't yet have a computer, this being 1988 – but a friend of mine did. He kindly let me play it when he was in class and I recall enjoying myself. I never completed the game, so buying it now would give me the opportunity to do so, albeit thirty-six years after the fact.

Regrettably, it looks like I'll probably never finish Pool of Radiance.

The truth is that, for me, the game is too old, both in terms of its content and presentation, for me to enjoy. I suspected this might be the case, since, when I wrote my Retrospective piece back in October 2022, I had the chance to look at lots of screenshots and even the original manual. They reminded me that just how primitive the game is. Now, as an enjoyer of OD&D, there's nothing inherently wrong with primitive and, in fact, there can often be something very enjoyable about it. When it comes to technology, though, the matter is a bit more complicated, since it can be difficult to unlearn what you have already learned.

In the case of Pool of Radiance, its user interface is awkward and clunky, designed for use with computer hardware that no longer exists. Likewise, the graphics are often difficult to read/recognize on a modern computer monitor. That made doing almost anything in the game slow and unintuitive, thereby detracting from my enjoyment. Further, the game design is very tedious and grindy – almost as if the stereotype of old school tabletop RPGs were true! Rather than challenging my wits, the game challenged my patience and I soon found I was unable to play it with any pleasure.

It's a great shame, because I was looking forward to playing Pool of Radiance to its conclusion, after all these years. I wonder if the problems are really with the game itself or with me. It may simply be the case that I've grown so accustomed to the way modern games work that I can't get myself back into the headspace to appreciate older ones. If so, that makes me wonder if something similar might be going on with people who claim they can no longer play older tabletop RPGs. Is this a case where "technology," broadly defined, so alters our mental frames that it inhibits or even impedes our ability to make use of earlier versions of itself? I don't know if this is true, but it's a fascinating thought.

Regardless, I still don't have a good replacement for Legend of Grimrock. Any suggestions?

White Dwarf: Issue #66

Issue #66 of White Dwarf (June 1985) is once again graced by a Chris Achilleos cover illustration. I've always been very fond of his artwork and this piece is no exception. This issue also marks another step, albeit a small one, down the road toward Games Workshop's transformation into an all-Warhammer-all-the-time company. Ian Livingstone's editorial opines that "there is obviously a resurgence of interest in wargaming," with the growing popularity of Warhammer Fantasy Battle being offered as evidence of this. I suspect his prognostication would ultimately prove correct. Warhammer's success was real and lasting; it played a huge role in revitalizing the field of miniatures wargaming, a segment of the larger hobby that continues to be very successful (and profitable) today. 

Speaking of miniatures wargaming, this issue's "Open Box" kicks off with a positive (7 out of 10) review of FASA's Battledroids, the earliest iteration of the Battletech line of games. Slightly more glowing (8 out of 10) is its review of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle Rules. There's also a review of the 48K Spectrum version of Talisman (7 out of 10). Rounding out the reviews are The Halls of the Dwarven Kings (8 out of 10) and not one but two Fighting Fantasy gamebooks: House of Hell and talisman of Death (both 9 out of 10). I owned and enjoyed House of Hell, which has a modern day haunted house setting. It also included a Fear score that increases as the reader's character deals with more frights within the titular locale. Once the score reaches a high enough number, the character is "scared to death." The mechanic introduces an interesting dynamic, as the reader tries to avoid encounters, since each one contributes to the Fear score and its inevitable consequences.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" laments the "fantasy explosion" in publishing with words I could almost have written: "SF is my true love ... Fie on fantasy: for me the highest literary values consist of megalmaniac computers, hyperspatial leaps and colliding black holes." He then goes on to review multiple fantasy books he considers "consistently better than the SF." Interestingly – or perhaps simply indicative of my own cramped tastes – the only one of these great fantasies he mentions that I recognize is Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse, the first of his "Incarnations of Immortality" series – and I don't count myself a fan. Langford nevertheless does review a few SF books, including E.C. Tubb's twenty-second Dumarest of Terra novel, The Terra Data. In his review, he notes that "beyond rotten sentences [it] has a plot resembling the previous ones: hero Dumarest tepidly pursued by omniscient yet inept Cybers, fights through unconquerable barriers of padding to obtain secret whereabouts of lost Earth, only to suffer his 22nd failure. Soporific." Cruel but accurate (and I say this as a fan of Tubb).

"The Road Goes Ever On" by Graham Staplehurst is a very nice overview/review of Iron Crown Enterprise's Middle-earth Role Playing and some of its supplements. Reading it again almost made me want to dust off my copy of MERP and give it a whirl again. Part Four of the "Thrud the Destroyer" saga continues, as the evil necromancer To-Me Ku-Pa employs dark sorcery to summon "the essence of evil throughout time." Behold!

"A Web in the Dark" by Simon Burley presents rules suggestions for adapting Spider-Man and similar superheroes to Games Workshop's Golden Heroes (which I need to review one day). "Once Risen, Twice Shy" by Steve Williams and Barney Sloane is a fun collection of documents – news clippings, handwritten notes, reports – that outline a grisly scenario for use with Call of Cthulhu. It's all quite well done and evocative. My only complaint is that the layout of the issue would make it difficult to easily photocopy and use the documents in play. Meanwhile, "Ambush!" by D.P. O'Connor is a three-page treatment of how best to simulate ambushes in Warhammer miniatures battles. 

"The Horse of the Invisible" by A.J. Bradbury is an excellent Call of Cthulhu scenario adapted from the William Hope Hodgson story of the same name. The adventure is lengthy, detailed, and, above all, dangerous – as the best CoC adventures are – well done. "The Philosopher's Stone" by David Whiteland is another lengthy and detailed scenario, this time for AD&D characters of levels 1-2. As its title suggests, the adventure involves alchemy and quite cleverly makes use of alchemical mixtures and reactions as part of resolving it. I loved this scenario in my youth and used it to good effect in kicking off a new campaign in my high school era setting.

"The Silent Hater" is a well done installment of "Fiend Factory," which strings together five different AD&D monsters and a map to create the outlines of an adventure for the enterprising referee to drop into his campaign. This is "Fiend Factory" at its best in my opinion and I was always glad to see them. On the other hand, "The Rings of Alignment" by Graeme Drysdale does little for me. There are five such artifact-level rings – one each for Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality – each with their own powerful guardian and special powers to those who wear them, either singly or in conjunction with others. I suppose such magic items have their place in certain kinds of campaigns, but I've rarely found them all that useful.

"Open House" is Joe Dever and Gary Chalk's report Citadel Miniatures' "Open Days," which attracted over 2000 gamers to the company's factory to participate in miniatures battles and painting competitions. The article includes photos of some of the winners of the latter and they are, of course, quite impressive. I find myself, as always, wishing I'd taken up miniatures painting when I was younger. Oh well! Closing out the issue are new episodes of both "The Travellers" and "Gobbledigook."

All in all, this is another worthwhile issue, filled with several excellent articles. That said, the increasing presence of Warhammer and related things is quite clear. I can't say that I blame Games Workshop for emphasizing their own products, especially at a time when they're growing in popularity. However, never having been a miniatures wargamer of any kind, let alone a player of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I could see the writing on the wall. It wasn't too much longer before I ceased reading White Dwarf and turned my attention elsewhere.

The New Force in Software

Issue #60 of White Dwarf magazine includes reviews of three Games Workshop computer games: Battlecars, D-Day, and Tower of Despair. Because they were all released for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum personal computer, which was, so far as I know, unavailable on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, I never saw (or played) the actual games themselves. Instead, I had to content myself with the advertisements that appeared in WD. Of the three, I'd have probably been most interested in Battlecars, because I always wanted to play the tabletop version of the game, but couldn't find a copy.

Did any readers own and/or play any of these games? If so, were they any good? Even after all these decades, I remain genuinely curious about them.

Diplomacy in the News

It's relatively rare to see a news story in the mainstream media that touches upon one of my interests. Consequently, I was surprised this morning to read about the claim that an "AI agent" named Cicero had "achiev[ed] human-level performance in the strategic board game Diplomacy."  Needless to say, this story caught my attention, as I was once a very avid player of Diplomacy and still retain a great fondness for it, though I haven't actually played it in many years. 

I'm naturally skeptical of these kinds of claims. I likewise lack the specific technical knowledge necessary to evaluate their veracity. Nevertheless, this is quite fascinating to me, since, if correct, it would represent a significant step in the evolution of computing. Mind you, much like chess, the degree to which being good at Diplomacy has any correlation to intelligence is separate question. In high school, my friends and I liked to flatter ourselves because we enjoyed playing "cerebral" games like this. I wonder if this story might be something similar, with the bravado of AI researchers standing in for that of fifteen year-old boys. 

Retrospective: Pool of Radiance

My late childhood and early teen years coincided not just with the ascent of fantasy and science fiction in popular media but with the (likely related) ascents of RPGs and video/computer games. By the time I first encountered roleplaying games, there were already serious efforts to combine these two hobbies – and my friends and I were very interested in seeing what they had to offer. That's why we greedily snapped up Wizardry and Telengard and Adventure and many more, all of which we enjoyed but none of which fulfilled our dreams of an electronic entertainment that truly brought the fun of a fantasy RPG to a console or desktop.

There were many reasons why we felt this way, most of them related to the technical limitations of computers in the early to mid-1980s. Another reason was that none of the computer or video games at the time made use of a rules system as complex as that of most pen-and-paper RPGs, which had a negative impact on their depth of play. Wizardry was a solid step in this direction, which is why I loved it, but it was still sufficiently primitive in the scope of its rules that it couldn't hold a candle to Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop roleplaying game.

This largely remained the state of affairs until the late 1980s, when advances in both computer technology and program design saw the rise of increasingly sophisticated offerings. By this time, I was away at college and, while I didn't have a desktop computer of my own, many of my friends did so. It was through one of them that, in the Fall of 1988, I was first laid eyes on Pool of Radiance. Produced by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI), Pool of Radiance was the first official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons computer game. Unlike the AD&D-branded Intellivision games of earlier in the decade, this one made use of the actual AD&D rules available at the time. This was a huge selling point to me, since all previous fantasy computer games used their own rules systems, which, as I noted above, were much less robust. 

The other thing that caught my attention was that Pool of Radiance was not a generic fantasy game. Instead, it made use of the then-new official AD&D setting of the Forgotten Realms. I'd been a fan of the Realms since I first encountered Ed Greenwood's articles in the pages of Dragon, so the use of the setting in Pool of Radiance was also a point in its favor. Further, the overall scenario of the game was designed not by the staff of SSI but by a team of RPG designers working at TSR, among them James Ward, David Cook, and Steve Winter. TSR fanboy that I was, this last fact assured me that, with Pool of Radiance, we were finally getting the goods: an honest to Crom digital adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons rather than a knock-off.

As one might expect, the centerpiece of Pool of Radiance was its character generator. The player is given the ability to generate up to six characters for use as his party of adventurers in the game. Ability scores are generated randomly, though the player possesses some capacity to alter them according to his preferences. Characters can belong to any of six races (human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, and halfling) and any of four classes (cleric, fighter, magic-user, thief, with demihumans given the opportunity to multiclass). Though representing only a portion of AD&D's full possibilities – there are no sub-classes or half-orcs, for instance – everything included in Pool of Radiance works the way it ought to in the tabletop version of the game. This was not a version of the game simplified for computers but the Real Deal™.

The game assumes the characters have come to the city of New Phlan and entered into the service of its council to reclaim the Old City, which has fallen into ruin and is now inhabited by a variety of monsters and evil humanoids. As the characters venture into these ruins, they gain experience and treasure, which enables them to explore ever more dangerous – and lucrative – areas. In time, they become sufficiently powerful and accomplished to move beyond Phlan and explore other locales that likewise would benefit from their presence. In short, Pool of Radiance is a good translation of the structure of most D&D campaigns into computerized form. 

The game's scenario is not groundbreaking or revolutionary in any real way, but it is nonetheless quite enjoyable, precisely because it is so similar to many people's experiences of playing AD&D. This similarity is buttressed by the inclusion of myriads of little rules and game elements, like saving throws, spell selection, magic items, and even demihuman level limits. To play Pool of Radiance is to play AD&D, albeit one that lacks the social interactivity that is, in my opinion, the foundation of why roleplaying is such a fun hobby. Even so, the game had a lot to offer and my friends and I spent far more time playing it than we probably ought to have.

In the decades since its release, computer RPGs have become vastly more sophisticated and immersive than was Pool of Radiance. Everything from their graphics, scenario design, and rules implementation have advanced by leaps and bounds, strengthened by improvements in technology and years of experience. Because of this, I doubt I could go back and play Pool of Radiance (or any of the many SSI AD&D computer games that followed in its wake) with any enjoyment. Yet, there's no question that this game was an important milestone in the development of the CRPG genre and for introducing a wider audience to Dungeons & Dragons – quite the legacy, if you ask me.

Retrospective: Wizardry

One of the many disadvantages of living in the aftermath of any kind of revolution is failing to appreciate fully just how remarkable were the initial sparks of that revolution. In 2022, computer roleplaying games are now so commonplace as to be unexceptional, even banal, to the point that there's even a widely used – and understood – abbreviation for them, CRPG. That wasn't always the case, though. In the first decade after the release of Dungeons & Dragons, computer technology was still sufficiently primitive that, despite the enthusiastic hopes of many (including Gary Gygax), there was still room for reasonable doubt about the likelihood that a computer program could ever translate the experience of playing a roleplaying game into a digital format.

Along came Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord in September 1981 to send the naysayers packing. Certainly there had been other computer RPG programs before Wizardry. Just a few months prior, in June 1981, the original Ultima was released to great acclaim – and before both of them there were The Temple of Apshai and Akalabeth: World of Doom (the latter a kind of "rough draft" of Ultima), not to mention numerous simple dungeon crawlers and text-based games. However, none of these enjoyed the same kind of initial success or influence as Wizardry (though good arguments can be made in favor of Ultima's longer shadow over the development of subsequent computer games and genres). Since this post is from my point of view, I feel quite justified in focusing on Wizardry, since it was, along with Telengard, the first computer roleplaying game I ever played.

Like so many early computer RPGs – or, frankly, most computer RPGs ever – Wizardry takes its cues from Dungeons & Dragons. Characters may be of the standard four classes (fighter, priest, mage, thief) and five races (human, dwarf, elf, gnome, and hobbit). A simple three-way alignment system is also present, though rather than chaos, law, and neutrality, it's evil, good, and neutrality. Characters also have six attributes (Strength, IQ, Piety, Vitality, Agility, and Luck) that, while somewhat different from their D&D counterparts, are obviously inspired by them. Interestingly, the game introduces the idea of "elite classes," which are somewhat similar in concept to the Third Edition D&D notion of prestige classes. For example, there's a class called a "lord" that is open to good fighters of high enough attributes. If a fighter meets all the requirements, he gains the ability to cast priest spells, much like a paladin in D&D. 

The premise of the game is that an evil wizard, Werdna – Andrew spelled backwards and derived from the name of one of the game's creator, Andrew Greenberg – has stolen a magical amulet from the titular Mad Overlord, Trebor, and used its power to create a vast maze beneath Trebor's castle. This maze consists of ten levels of increasing complexity and difficulty. Trebor now recruits adventurers willing to brave the maze and face Werdna, which is where the player's characters come in. The player creates a party of six characters to explore the dungeon, locate its treasures, and increase in level as they do so. It's a very thin premise, but probably no more so than many early D&D campaigns. Indeed, I suspect a big part of Wizardry's appeal was how similar it was, both conceptually and mechanically, to Dungeons & Dragons, then and now the most popular fantasy RPG.

Like so many early computer roleplaying games, Wizardry was unforgiving. There was no ability to map within the game itself, meaning that a player, if he didn't wish to become lost, had to create his own map using paper and pencil, just like in "real" D&D. Also like real D&D, Werdna's mazes are filled with hidden doors, one-way doors, magical seals, and teleportation traps. These frustrate attempts to create an accurate map, This is in addition to the various monsters and other hazards that exist on each level. Wizardry did not allow the player to save his progress within the dungeon. Neither could a character gain a new level. To do either, the characters had to exit the dungeon and return to the safety of the Adventurer's Inn on the surface. Making one's way through the dungeon is extremely tense, since failure had genuine consequences. This is especially true in the deeper levels, since exiting them took a lot of time and effort and there was always a chance one might encounter more monsters along the way.

By today's standards, Wizardry is primitive, both in terms of its graphical presentation and gameplay. Even the simplest, most basic computer RPG of the 21st century is lightyears ahead of Wizardry when it comes to its rules and graphics. Yet, for all that, I don't think I've encountered a contemporary CRPG that has held my attention quite as powerfully as did Wizardry. Neither have I found one that struck the right balance between risk and reward, frustration and joy. Doing well in Wizardry took patience, cleverness, and not a little bit of luck, much D&D did back in those days. Succeeding felt like a genuine accomplishment and you quickly learned to cherish characters that survived more than a couple expeditions into the maze – and felt loss at their inevitable demise. Wizardry was by no means perfect – what game is? – but it was a hell of a lot of fun. I still look back on the many hours I spent hunched over my friend's Apple II playing with great fondness.

Slaying Monsters Should Be Mostly Fun and Games