Gold Box cRPGs

[Mischief Maker]

I've been getting a lot of PMs asking me about Gold Box RPGs after I recommended them in a thread that turned into an ugly flame war, so I thought I'd start its own thread.

Gold Box specifically refers to a CRPG engine used by SSI that mixed the grid-based exploration of a Wizardry or Might and Magic game (or Etrian Odyssey for you damned kids) with isometric positional SRPG combat. I think it represents the pinnacle of the classic WRPG design before WRPG became code for ren-faire dating sims, written by fanfiction authors who wish you could "skip" the game part, about having sex with your party-mates in every conceivable gender combination. My memory could easily be clouded by nostalgia, but there are few experiences in early 90s computer gaming more beloved by me than tossing an expertly-aimed fireball into a mob of bad guys then watching them give out the "bleah!" skull death animation one at a time over, and over, and over again.

What could be a blessing or a dealbreaker for you is these games are running on the AD&D 2nd edition ruleset, with THAC0, Armor class (which is BETTER the lower the number), Saving Throws, and Spell Memorization. These are complex games running a complex ruleset and there's very little room for bad moves, ESPECIALLY in the early levels. For a more nuanced discussion of the complexity of Gold Box SRPGs, here's an article by the CRPG Addict. I don't want to say JRPGs are the Euroshmups of the cRPG genre, but it's kind of difficult to go back once you've sunk your teeth into the real thing.

GOG has several collections of Gold Box games. The best start is FORGOTTEN REALMS: THE ARCHIVES - COLLECTION TWO which not only includes the original game, Pools of Radiance, currently #3 on the CRPG Addict's list of top games, but it includes Unlimited Adventures, which is an engine for creating Gold Box adventures of your own and still has sites with fan-made modules scattered across the net. [Edit: or maybe all of them neatly organized into a list right here!]

If you want more, there's The Dragonlance collection which pushed the engine to its limits. They also had a couple Gold Box games in the Buck Rogers and Spelljammer universes, but gog hasn't released them yet.

The 16-bit Dark Sun games followed after the retirement of the Gold Box engine. I haven't played them so I can't comment.

Have fun!

[Obscura]

The 16-bit Dark Sun games followed after the retirement of the Gold Box engine. I haven't played them so I can't comment.

The Dark Sun games abandoned the first-person movement of the Gold Box games, and stuck with a tile-based overhead view the whole way.

If you've played Knights of the Chalice, you know roughly what to expect, except the Dark Sun games had some "Fallout-before-Fallout" style alternate quest resolutions and were somewhat nonlinear. And they were 2nd edition, not 3.5, of course.

(If you haven't played Knights of the Chalice, go play it -- it's an awesome early '90s style D&D 3.5 Orc/Troll/Giant killing romp.)

[Squire Grooktook]

Thanks for this, I love srpg's and like dungeon crawls, so the thought of combining them in an intelligent, nuanced way sounds like a lot of fun to me.

[BryanM]

DnD was such a zany rule set. There's these spells like Bless Weapon that give you a +5% chance of hitting a dude in melee combat. Or you could just kill absolutely everything with 6d6 guaranteed damage with a Fireball. Fireball not working? Fuckin' fire giants. Use Lightning Bolt instead.

You'll be happy to hear their kickblaster earlier this year went down in flames. But we got money to spare for them ouyas. Gotta free the games.

Dungeon Master was also one I enjoyed from back then. I'm sure there's still stuff like this getting made all the time (Spiderweb Software comes to mind) but the obsession with blockbusters makes the market feel far more truncated than it really is.

[Herr Schatten]

Thanks for the heads-up. I absolutely loved the Krynn games back in the day. I always found the Dragonlance campaign much more interesting than Forgotten Realms which always felt far too generic to me, even though the games themselves were fine. (The novels by Hickman and Weis (especially the Legends series) were also heads and shoulders above the mindless superhero slashfests R. A. Salvatore delivered for FR.)

I really hope Dark Queen is a patched version, though, so you don't have to edit your save state with a hex editor to get rid of the bug that made the retail version of the game unfinishable.

Slightly OT: I'd be instantly on board if there was a kickstarter for a remake of Dragonstrike.

[Obscura]

There's these spells like Bless Weapon that give you a +5% chance of hitting a dude in melee combat.

While that's technically true, it's also misleading -- what really matters is how much a +1 bonus proportionally affects your chance to hit. That's likely to be from 10%-20% -- a big upgrade.

Of course, Bless is also a first level Cleric spell, while Fireball is a third level Mage spell. Big difference there.

[Edmond Dantes]

What could be a blessing or a dealbreaker for you is these games are running on the AD&D 2nd edition ruleset,

Nitpick: The earlier ones used 1st edition. Later on they used 2nd edition. Though this really is a petty nitpick, as the two rulesets were mechanically very similar.

These are complex games running a complex ruleset and there's very little room for bad moves, ESPECIALLY in the early levels.

Not sure "complex" is the word here. One of Advanced Dungeons & Dragon's strengths and one of the reasons people still go back to it even to this day, is that its actually a very simple, straightforward system. Yes it can get unwieldy if you try to simulate absolutely everything from the weather to whether or not drinking two potions in a row will make you explode (The Spoony One had a hilarious story about that) but the basic mechanics were pretty simple. Though there are even some people who prefer original D&D over AD&D....

For a more nuanced discussion of the complexity of Gold Box SRPGs, here's an article by the CRPG Addict. I don't want to say JRPGs are the Euroshmups of the cRPG genre, but it's kind of difficult to go back once you've sunk your teeth into the real thing.

Quoted for truth. The only Console RPGs I have an easy time with are

a) 8-bit RPGs, which tend to play like cRPGs but heavily simplified (the first three Dragon Warriors for example pretty much let you wander anywhere, just you'll probably get your ass kicked).

b) RPGs I have nostalgia for (Final Fantasy IV and VI, Chrono Trigger)

c) this is cliche but... ones where I legit find the story/characters/kittens fun or interesting enough that I don't mind the lack of linearity.

In other words, there's a fine line between "okay, this is interesting" and "god this RPG is a pile of shit." Usually it seems the more 16-bit it is, the more I can stand it. RPGs starting in the 32-Bit era better as hell be King's Field or I simply can't play them.

If you want more, there's The Dragonlance collection which pushed the engine to its limits. They also had a couple Gold Box games in the Buck Rogers and Spelljammer universes, but gog hasn't released them yet.

I'm not sure how true this is but I've been told you won't understand the Dragonlance games unless you've read the Chronicles and Legends trilogies (which, I have, so...)

Bragging moment: I have almost all the Gold Box games boxed ^__^ Including the Buck Rogers games. But I don't have Spelljammer yet.

[BryanM]

While that's technically true, it's also misleading -- what really matters is how much a +1 bonus proportionally affects your chance to hit. That's likely to be from 10%-20% -- a big upgrade.

>0_o> That is fair, any instance where it gives a bonus will by definition be a greater boost than 5% net damage per turn.

Except for when you're capped and it adds 0%.

Of course, Bless is also a first level Cleric spell, while Fireball is a third level Mage spell. Big difference there.

Bless isn't close to the weakest spell in the system. I was getting at how incredibly rare proactive buffs ever matter. (Which is far less than how great buff classes in Etrian Odyssey are or even Bikill/Barrier in Dragon Quest.)

Of course the balance in the spell list elsewhere is totally wackadoo, but the huge comical power deferentials and lethality is really part of its charm. It'd be rather dull if everything was alike.

how incredibly rare proactive buffs ever matter.

Though I guess if the games reflected the actual rules accurately, you could just create an army of undead mofos, golems, hire some goons etc to clear floors for you. It's kinda weird how DnD straddled the line from being a rigidly defined combat system and an open flowing magical world where you can do anything.

By all rights you should be able to set zany Home Alone style traps in the final castle, and then run away and have Tyranthraxus bumble into hundreds of them until he finally dies from a pot of boiling hot water falling on his head.

... that's starting to remind me more of roguelikes than goldboxers tbqh

[Mischief Maker]

Bragging moment: I have almost all the Gold Box games boxed ^__^ Including the Buck Rogers games. But I don't have Spelljammer yet.

That is indeed worth bragging about, congrats!

One thing I miss about the olden days of computer gaming was what an event buying a new game was. Nevermind the floppies, they included as much swag as a boxed campaign for a PnP. Maps, rulebooks, backstory, so much to occupy you as the HD install chugged away.

[Aguraki]

I thought the goldbox games were abandonwares?
ssi is dead and lost licence so who owns the rights and where the money goes?
gog and steam sells these old games with a copy of dosbox so Id really like to know if this is legit or if abandonware status isnt.
ps:dunno much about how the industry works

[BryanM]

The online copyright catalog doesn't list them, however they don't list the original Neverwinter Nights either (that historic game on AOL - Isn't it cool SSI made the first graphical MMO?) and some corp has the rights to that now.

[MR_Soren]

The gold box games were a lot of fun. A friend and I really liked one called Unlimited Adventures which included a scenario editor. I don't know if that one actually used the "gold box" engine, but I thought most of the early 90s SSI D&D games were pretty fun.

[Edmond Dantes]

Bragging moment: I have almost all the Gold Box games boxed ^__^ Including the Buck Rogers games. But I don't have Spelljammer yet.

That is indeed worth bragging about, congrats!

On reflection, I wonder if I shouldn't have been more detailed. I have the main games in gold boxes... but I got them in three volumes, with Volume 1 having Pool of Radiance, Azure Bonds and Silver Blades, Volume 2 being the Dragonlance games, and Volume 3 being Pools of Darkness plus the two Savage Frontier games. For some reason the Dragonlance box is smaller than the other two despite still being crammed with content (And these are all floppy versions, tho the volume 3 for some reason also had the 9-game collector CD slipped in the box as well. Which is good for me because it means I have the Dragonlance games on CD-ROM. I also have the Forgotten Realms Archive and the AD&D Masterpiece Collection, so I have whatever was in those sets as well.... and meaning I have some games twice over).

I recorded a video showing them off (as well as my four Phantasy Star games), but it ran a little long (about 50 minutes) so I'm not sure I wanna upload it. I might instead take snapshots. Unless you guys wouldn't mind me showing off boxed games (with manuals and inserts and, in the case of one of the Buck Rogers games, even the previous owner's graph paper maps!) while making random comments?

One thing I miss about the olden days of computer gaming was what an event buying a new game was. Nevermind the floppies, they included as much swag as a boxed campaign for a PnP. Maps, rulebooks, backstory, so much to occupy you as the HD install chugged away.

Indeed, lately boxed PC games have become one of my joys. It's almost worth going for boxed copies just for those little catalogs of other games. Such a weird feeling to look through most of those and then find you actually have the games they advertise...

.... Although, if I could ever get my hands on an MS-DOS version of War of the Lance, I would. Not this month as I've already spent my limit, but maybe soon...

[Mischief Maker]

Here's a really interesting article on the behind-the-scenes start of the Gold Box series:

http://www.filfre.net/2016/03/opening-t ... o-desktop/