OT: Best D&D RPG Game?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

# 5) Sundog: The Frozen Legacy

what's that like? havn't heard of it.

[Puke]

Oooohhhhh, Id FORGOTTEN about Sundog! That game was the best! I never finished it, so a while back I picked up an Atari ST emulator to give it another go - but it never worked right. anyone know where I can get a working copy of this?

FTL made the best games. When I was a kid, I had a winning entery ($100, i was so stoaked) in the OIDS galaxy design contest. the best part was the floppy the mailed with all the other winning galaxies on it. must have been a couple hundred new levels to play, all masterfully done. Dungeon Master (and sequels) was another great FTL game. what happened to that company, or at least to the developers from it?

This also is another game that answeres the calling for the type of thing described in Atrocities dream, in another thread.

[teal]

I'll throw in a recommendation for Planescape:Torment. It is a completely different kind of role playing game then most of the others mentioned (vastly different than Baldur's Gate for example). Most rpgs seem to focus on combat and gathering treasure and the story is given second place. Not so in Planescape:Torment. There the story is extremely immersive (a bit of a mystery in that you wake up in the morgue with no memory and quickly learn that you can not die so you are trying to learn who you are). Since who you are is an integral part of the story you also get to make many decisions on what type of person/character you are. So Planescape:Torment offers you some real meaty actual "role" playing decisions. The potential downside to the game is that combat plays a somewhat secondry role (their are several combats and I really enjoyed them because they were important combats in the story arc, but not nearly as much "hack and slash" as in say Baldur's gate).

Another game which offers you plenty of "role" playing decisions and is very unique in both story and genre is Geneforge from Spiderweb software. In that game you are a shaper with the ability to create your own army of mutant creations which do your fighting for you (it too is a mystery where you are shipwrecked on a forbidden island and have to figure out why the island is forbidden and who or what shipwrecked you there). Plus making your own little pet monsters and running around with them is just fun. Another thing I really liked about the game is that it is morally ambigous in that who seems to be "good" is later revealed to be doing some pretty nasty things and that who seems "bad" later turn out to be almost justified, except... (i.e. what is ultimately "good" to your character is a truly interesting choice depending on what your character values and not something that is pretty obviously good like stopping the world from being destroyed or whatever).

Teal

[Alneyan]

I second Teal recommendation for Planescape Torment. Wonderful dialogues, if you like to read quite a lot. If you don't... then stay clear from this game! *Thinks of Fall from Grace and whistles innocently* Now if only I could play this game in proper English, with the intented slang...

[Gandalph]

RPG and RTS have always been, and will always be, my two favorite genre's. My first was Might and Magic 1 which I played, without beating it, for 3 years. I have purchased and played all M&M's since then. I have also gone through the entire Heroes of M&M series and agree that 3 is the best of those. I have played BG and BG2(and it's expansion that allows an end to the story) and liked them very much. Morrowind could not hold my interest. IMO it had too much eye-candy and not enough gameplay. Dungeon Seige was pretty, but way too easy. A game should be challenging, again IMO.
With all that said, the one RPG that never leaves my hard drive, and the one I spend way too much time playing, is Neverwinter Nights. This game uses the 3rd edition AD&D rules, allows you to immerse yourself in what ever type of persona you chose, and has a great story line. It is also not as linear as many other titles. Sure there is a main story line, but there are many side quests and secondary story lines. The game itself, and how you achieve victory, is controlled by how you act and react to situations and NPC's. You can be anything from a Chaotic Evil Monk to a Lawful Good Paladin and anything in between. I am currently playing the latest expansion called Hordes of the Underdark with a Nuetral Good Sorcerer/Fighter named, you guessed it, Gandalph. This game is equal, in entertainment value(IMO), to SEIV. If you ever tire of playing the 3 main stories from Bioware(the original and 2 expansions), there are a multitude of player made stories to tackle. It is literally neverending. My only problem has been finding decent Online multiplayer games. It seems I always find the immature brat that figured out how to change himself into a dragon, or otherwise cheat and hack to the detriment of the game. I am sure that decent multiplayer games exist, I have just not found any (admitting that after several bad experiences, I quit looking).

EDIT - BTW, they have combined the original Neverwinter with the 1st expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, and sell it for around 30 bucks, an excellent bargain.

[ January 06, 2004, 20:27: Message edited by: Gandalph ]

[Phule]

I'd like to make a reccomendation for Runesword 1 and Runesword 2. Runesword 1 is freeware, Runesword 2 you'd have to buy (although they do have a limited demo available).

Both games are run basically the same way - you create a set of characters, load a tome to adventure in, and have at it. There is no one type of adventure you can have, as every tome is different. Some are puzzle games, some are rather linear adventures, some have lots of fighting, some have very little. In most cases, if there is something you don't like, the included Creator utility allows you to change it rather readily (if you have problems, you can ask on the Runesword section of these Boards).

The main differences between the two:
Graphics:
Runesword 1's item graphics are limited to 32x32 256 color bitmaps, while Runesword 2's item graphics can be 32x32, 64x32, 32x64, 64x64, 32x96, or 64x96 256 color bitmaps. Also, RS2 provides support for some video formats (although this is seldom used).
Interface:
The skill and spell interfaces differ between RS 1 and 2. RS1's skill interface is faster to use, but limits the number of on-demand skills that can be used considerably; RS2's is slightly slower to use, but allows for use of any number of on-demand skills.
Behind the scenes:
RS2 has a few more commands in the script than does RS1, which adds some more flexibility.
Community:
RS1 is not as popular anymore, so there aren't as many player-created tomes available. However, the RS2 community will help out with RS1 projects. We've been slowed down a lot due to the recent lack of uploading on these forums, however.

[Fyron]

To those of you that play NWN... do you ever play it Online? If so, want to play together?

NWN is also very highly moddable, and has the cool feature of allowing a DM in the game, so he can adjust adventures on the fly, like in a real pen and paper RPG session (though it of course still lacks the direct interaction that makes pen and paper RPGs great).

[ January 06, 2004, 21:56: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Narratio]

I'm a dinosaur. I've yet to find a PC based RPG that's a quarter as much fun as 4 or 5 friends sitting around a table with figures, maps, dice and beer.

Sorry, I feel RPG's need eyeball contact.

[Gandalph]

As I stated in my post, finding a good Online game is the difficult part. I would definately be interested in one that was arranged from this terrific group of people.

[Fyron]

Any good modules you would recommend?