A Secret Kept By Millions

Dungeons and Dragons and The World Of Closet Nerds

I admit it, I’m a nerd. I did it all and I’m coming out of the closet. Yes… Let’s go over my nerd check list. Dungeons and Dragons… Check… All night sessions of RISK… Check. Magic: The Gathering… Check. Well, you get the picture, I could go on, but it suffices to say if there is a nerdy thing to do, I did it. The funny thing is that many people out there come from the same world that I do, far more then you might expect. Out of the many closet nerd things to do however none puts a bigger stamp in your nerd passport then Dungeons and Dragons. Would it surprise you to know that Dungeons and Dragons for example has been around since 1974? Did you know that over 20 million people have played dungeons and dragons world wide according to a recent BBC news study since its release? Did you know that it continues to this very day to suck up the lives of millions of people around the world?

Dungeons and Dragons is far bigger then most people realize but because of this nerd stigma that has been placed on it, it continues even today to be a more or less an underground, cult style hobby. It’s completely uncool to admit that you play dungeons and dragons, despite the fact that over 20 million people play it. It has played an enormous role in popular culture with countless books, cartoons, movies, magazines and anything else you can think of dedicated to one of the worlds unusual hobbies. It’s amazing with all the history and the impact to popular culture that D&D has had there are so many people completely oblivious to what it’s about and what the attraction to this pretend world really is. The next few articles are going to be dedicated to this unusual and exciting game which is at the very core of every aspect of gaming today.

The word role-playing usually conjures up images of strange sexual encounters setup by a couple who has grown completely bored of their sex life and although that frightens me, dungeons and dragons role-playing is a quite a different thing but is at the heart of this mysterious hobby. In dungeons and dragons you create an imaginary character that will represent you in an imaginary world, which will in turn be created by the Dungeon Master (The host of the game). The dungeon master in addition to creating the world, creates a story plot in which your characters will get involved, having the task of resolving the plots conflict. In many ways it’s like a movie or book that you and your friends will play out except that no one really knows the outcome. The dungeon master knows what everyone in the story will do except the players who are in control of their own characters and act as they wish, guided only by the characters background which they create before the game begins. Confused? Let’s try break it down some more.

It’s really simple, characters, just like in books or movies need to have substance. A personality, a background and an appearance, these aspects define a person that you can imagine and during the “character creation” step which happens prior to playing the game you decide what kind of person you want to be in this imaginary world you are about to step into. Just like in books or movies you create this character by writing down specifics of your characters life, including statistics about your characters abilities based on rules using a game system outlined in the many dungeons and dragons books. This short story and statistics will from that point on be your guide on how to appropriately role-play (there is that word) your character in the game and what he is capable of doing. In essence, you create him anyway you want, but once the game starts you are bound by what you have written down. If for example you make your character an insensitive sexist brute with great strength and fighting ability, you will have to role-play your character in that fashion despite anything that occurs in the story and you will be limited by his abilities. It may seem simple, but it can be quite a challenge depending on the circumstances of the story, which brings me to the second aspect of the game.

Once the characters are created, the Dungeon Master is then responsible for creating a world in which these characters will live and the story that they will get involved in. It’s really the toughest job and it’s the reason that the Dungeon Master is usually the most dedicated of the players. He’s also the host of the game and in charge of making sure the rules are followed, using the almighty dungeon master rule book. The story will be created around the characters you and your friends have created and will usually make you the center pieces of the plot. It will be designed to challenge the characters in ways that will hopefully surprise and entertain you. When the game begins, the dungeon master will describe everything about the world, the location were you currently are and any important events that are happening. Then you are cut loose into this imaginary world role-playing your character anyway you want, bound only by your imagination and the limitation of your characters life story and abilities.

There is far more to it then that, but if there was a simple description of the game, I think that was it. The heart of the game really is in the role-playing and the adventures that the story plot created by the dungeon master presents. Fortunately for the less imaginative there is enough source material (books) out there so that you don’t necessarily have to create your own world or even your own story. Books, magazines, maps, story modules (adventures created so you can get into the game faster) and of course a enormous gaming community at your finger tips makes this game far more accessible. I will probobly do more articles in the future about role-playing game but to me none carry the quality and nastalgia of Dungeons and Dragons.

The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part V The Death of an Era

As the old saying goes, all things must end and the golden age of gaming was unfortunately no exception. I doubt anyone knew it at the time, hell most of us didn’t even know we were living through the golden age of gaming as it was. Still by about 1994 the golden age of gaming was just about over, along with what was left of the small time business ideology of the last two decades that allowed these golden age classics to exist. The gaming industry was already taking whole new directions in design, marketing and mentality in general of what should go into a game and unfortunately for us it was for the most part bad, with some very small exceptions. Just as the final curtain of uninhibited creativity dropped, there would still be a couple of magical games, perhaps the best of them all, that would be released and still earn the right to be called a golden age classic. Master of Orion among them, despites it’s affiliation with “da man”, Microprose, was actually one of very few games of it’s time that was released as the designers of the game intended. Uninfluenced by the disastrous gaming industry philosophy being instilled into the industry, something that would plaque games and game design over the next decade, Master of Orion was released in 1994 in all its glory as a DOS based game.

Master of Orion was in many ways a groundbreaking game, but from a design perspective despite being well put together, it wasn’t necessarily all that original. In more then one way it was civilization in space, not that, this alone made it unoriginal and certainly it didn’t make it a bad game. To the contrary, by using Civilizations successful features and adding a few original design idea’s Master of Orion was far superior to Civilization in many ways and in fact, if my humble opinion counts at all I would say it was the best game of its era. Master of Orion is the product of taking good idea’s from other games and putting them into a game using a science-fiction formula that in regards to the turn based strategy genre hadn’t really been used much. In fact I think there were only one or two games that would even qualify and they were very forgettable titles I couldn’t even find on the internet today. Master of Orion became the great grandfather of the newly born genre that would come to be called the 4x turned based strategy games and in the coming years it would offer more to its genre then any game has to this very day.

Master of Orion was a galactic conquest game in which you were a ruler trying to conquer the known universe. It had plenty of starting conditions, competitive alien leaders, technology to research, planets to govern and a good mix of victory conditions, by 1994 it was a standard for turned based games set by you guessed it, Civilization. Master of Orion had more to it then that however and in many ways it’s really what made it special for sci-fi freaks like me who loved the idea of making our own ships. The game allowed you to use the technology you researched and custom build and name your own star ships using said technology. In addition units didn’t just bump into each other and give you a funny noise to let you know who won or lost combat, but rather there was a tactical battle screen that would come up anytime enemy units would meet in space and a whole separate strategically mini game would take place to determine the winner of any given combat. It was a fairly simple design with an incredibly in depth strategically element and quite frankly it was just fun to play. It wasn’t a magical game that blew you away, but sometimes being fun and addictive is all a game has to be and in the case of Master of Orion, it’s exactly what you got.

With Master of Orion, the Golden Age of Gaming ended and would never be again, but pc gaming even then was still in its infancy. There is still plenty of gaming history left for us cover and we are going to dive deeper into the specifics of what made the gaming industry what it is today. The Golden Age of Gaming was just a beginning, but it was a great beginning.

For fans of Master of Orion, especially those that were disapointed by either or both of the sequals, there is a new version of the game in the tradition of the original classic being developed by gamers outside of the industry system called Free Orion. You can find information about the game here a ttp://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page and even play the current build of the game.

The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part IV Global Domination

The Golden Age of gaming really was experienced for the most part on the Commodore 64 in the mid 80’s to early 90’s in my opinion. That’s not to say it ended there but without sounding like a Commodore 64 Yuppie, it was during those early days of computer gaming that both game design and gameplay was at its purest form.

I’m sure not everyone would agree, but hear me out. For starters during the Commodore 64 days game designers had to deal with extremely limited resources, which meant that creativity and focus on gameplay was essential to have a successful game. Things like graphics, sound and music were additions made after the kinks of the actual game were worked out. As the industry progressed, giving way to more and better resources you would think game designers would take advantage of those resources by expanding their game design. What happened instead was that the resources were traded in for better graphics, sound effects and music and did little to progress game design forward with a few exceptions of course. I believe the only way to have a successful game is to focus solely on game design, everything else is just a bonus. The Golden Age began to decline when this ideology slipped from the minds of game developers and ended when words like eye candy and franchise rights were added to the mix. It was a bitter sweet time in the early 90’s because despite the fact that the technology was becoming far superior to commodore 64, the games that were released for these seemingly better machines were not.

When the commodore 64 lost favor for bigger and better machines like the IBM PC, the great golden age of gaming began to slip right through the finger tips of the game developers, who had already turned computer gaming into a legitimate business. Sadly the game industry would remain in a more or less infancy for many years for this very reason in my opinion and were it not for a few game designers that lived through and remembered the golden age of gaming, it would probably still be struggling today. Yes, the golden age of gaming was on a decline by the early 90’s but it was hardly over.

One of several great game designers of the early days of gaming was Sid Meier who by the early 90’s had already contributed a golden age classic called pirates to the gaming industry. Quite frankly, Sid could have grabbed his chest, keeled over and died right then and there and he would be no less famous today then he is right now, that’s how good Pirates really was. Pirates however wasn’t to be his greatest contribution, far from it, another title would take that honor and would in many ways revitalize the declining golden age of gaming, in fact almost starting a new golden age in its own right. Civilization was the name and global domination was the game.

Civilization was released for the Amiga and PC initially, having been too advanced for machines from earlier eras in 1991. It would be the first of over 20 variations of the game released on almost every machine capable of running games between 1991 to today. Infinitely popular and awesomely designed Civilization was in its own way a gaming phenomenon that would sweep through and capture the imagination of gamers and non gamers alike. In my opinion it’s a special game because it broke the nerd barrier that prevented anyone who didn’t want to be a nerd from playing, in fact it became kind of cool to play civilization because it was actually an educational game to some degree. To hardcore gamers like me however it was far more then just some trend, Civilization was the single best game ever released at the time and to many players out there holds that title to this very day.

What was it that separated Civilization from the pack? Purely and simply, game design. There could be no easier answer and for those of us who followed gaming at the time and now, at that very moment in time there was nothing that came even remotely close to the game design level Civilization was at. In fact, with the exception of the Civilization sequels even today there are very few games that play at the level of intelligence and strategy as do the Civilization series games.

The games design is brilliant because Sid took every aspect of a global domination game and included it using not realistic historical data, but common sense data, things that we all sort of already know. This classic design genius is what makes most of Sid Meiers game designs so great, he understands that popular culture and not reality rule the gaming world. It makes games like Civilization approachable because it doesn’t demand too much knowledge from us, while at the same time demanding that you think when you play. Sid also understood that different people will play his game in different ways and the option to do just that is a critical part of all of Sid Meier games success.

Science, Military, Diplomacy, Economics and Domestic affairs are just some of the things you had to manage as a leader of a nation among many. Competing for the ultimate prize, the planet, in on itself that alone had the makings of a great game. In fact most game designers would probably have stopped right there and then. Sid however had the foresight to know that there was far more possible with a game like that. Randomized maps with a variety of starting conditions that would create endless replay-ability was unheard of at the time, at least at this level of complexity. Multiple ways to win including the lovable space race which could allow you to win the game even if you were loosing the global war. The game had so many possibilities you would have to play it at least a thousand times to see them all and even then there was no assurance that you had.

I could go on and on about the game, but I think it should suffice to say that its lovable complexity and approachable gameplay made Civilization the ageless classic that it is. Easily one of the greatest games of it’s time and perhaps the last game to be released that had a global impact on the gaming industry during the golden age of gaming.

Civilization defined the turned based strategy games genre but more importantly it created a standard for strategy games that designers continue to this very day to match. Thank god it did! Civilization gave way to other turned based strategy gems that furthered the genre and of all the games post Civilization there was none that captured my attention more then the Golden Age Classic Master of Orion. In many ways Master Of Orion would create a whole new genre of gaming itself despite belonging to the turned based strategy games genre, but more importantly Master Of Orion would prevent the golden age of gaming from ending prematurely.

The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part III

The Gold Box Set

Finally D&D, for the love of god why did it take so long! I realize I’m branding my self nerd of the century by saying it, but at least I’m out of the closet. I love D&D and the fact that someone finally made a D&D computer game in the late 80’s called Pool Of Radiance (Forgotten Realms) was like an answer to my prayers. By the time Pool Of Radiance came out I had already been fully nerdified by playing the pencil and paper version of D&D and like most geeks I lied about it until, well, until just now. As far as I’m concerned the Golden Age of gaming had hit its peek with Pool Of Radiance and for many of us closet dorks it was as good as it ever got.

Pool Of Radiance was still a game very much in what was at the time a standard format for computer RPG’s like Bards Tale. You made your six characters, you equipped them and you traversed the world in the first person perspective. That however is as far as the similarities went because Pool of Radiance definitively changed how role-playing games would be played in the future. For starters, story became a key element as opposed to combat, which by the way was also changed from the standard text based descriptions of many of its predecessors. There was an overall story in Pool of Radiance that was built up through numerous quests that your characters would complete. The impact of their success would change aspects of the game world, like the safety of traveling through certain area’s of the game for example. More so however the story was actually interesting and well written. Combat also got an overhaul, having been changed to a top down view, creating a turned based strategy mini game. The rules of the pencil and paper D&D game were re-created in Pool of Radiance and in many ways it what really gave the game it’s uhmpf…

Sound, Graphics, Music and game play had reached a new plateau in gaming and again the expectation of players rose to a new level. Pool of Radiance also had a significantly larger following and was so much a classic that it was actually re-released several times on DOS based PC’s in the future as you guessed it “Gold Box Games”. It also triggered sequels like Curse Of The Azure Bonds which was an even larger and more complex game that in my opinion was also an amazing achievement for its time. Most importantly however Pool Of Radiance proved that D&D wasn’t some closet geek thing and in fact it was very much a mainstream thing that most of us lied about all the way to adulthood. It ensured that D&D would forever be linked to PC and Video gaming and D&D games of all sorts continue to be made to this very day.

The Golden Age of gaming had certainly peeked with Pool Of Radiance in my opinion. What came next was a sort of bandwagon mentality in that the genre of role-playing games has been established and no one dared mess witht the format. Despite some great games coming out in the early 90’s, the golden age of gaming began to decline. The decline didn’t mean it was over, far from it. In fact there were new platforms on which to put games with better sound, graphics and certainly more advanced game-play that would energize the industry and create a far larger player base. New game designers jumped on board that would eventually revitalize (not that it needed it) the gaming industry by looking at game-play in a very different way.

The Golden Age Of gaming was certainly dedicated to role-playing games, but strategy games were about to have a revolution that would shift many role-playing nerds like myself into a completely different area of gaming. A man named Sid Meier who had already created a cult following with his commodore classic Pirates was about to take the gaming industry by storm and turn a grumpy out of touch old men like my dad into.... if you can believe it, a gamer!!

The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part II

A New Age Of Gaming

Bards Tale, Bards Tale, Bards Tale…. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can count yourself out of the old school geek circle. This Golden Age classic rates at the very top of the mid 80’s games for the early game PC’s like the commodore. In my humble, albeit nerdy opinion, in everyway that I can think of, Bards Tale defines good gaming even for today’s standards.

For starters Bards Tale offered a tremendous amount of flexibility and choices. Before you even start the game you had to create a party of characters which would in turn affect your fighting strategies from that point on. After you created your party you had an entire world to trample through, of which, if you were a true nerd you mapped every inch on grid paper. The graphics, for it’s time, where great and the perspective of the game was in the first person. There were monsters, trap, annoying puzzles and most importantly a large dungeon to explore securing any doubts that this game was in fact a dungeons and dragons role-playing game.

Still this early RPG like ZORK, required a lot of imagination as the combat had no sound and all you really got was a report of what your characters did via a little text box. Ultimately you had to imagine the fight, the scene and what your characters looked like. The heart of the Pencil and Paper RPG ideology was still secure in these early games but Bards Tale ultimately was upped by Bards Tale sequels and others like Wasteland. All of which were golden classics in their own right.

This true gem had a big impact on the gaming community, mainly through expectation. After a game like Bards Tale going back to text based games or earlier RPG’s with lesser graphics like Ultima just didn’t produce the same nostalgia that Bards Tale did. Gamers expected much more from their games at that point and luckily so where the developers of these games..

To me, after Bards Tale, every role-playing game I played from that moment on was an effort to find the feeling I had with this lovable classic. Fortunately the golden age of gaming had just begun and the excitement and anticipation of a great game would not be disappointed in the coming years. In fact, some of the best games in gaming history were about to be released and they would not only redefine gaming, but they would unit an American sub-culture that had already existed for over ten years. Still like ZORK, Bards Tale was a moment in gaming history that would never come again and unless you were there just at the right time you probably missed it.

Well, perhaps not. The classics as they say can never be forgotten and thanks to some friendly old school gamers who cling to the past like a 90 year geriatric holds on to the steering wheel of his oversized Cadillac, these games can still be found on the internet. I urge anyone who hasn't already experienced these wonderful classics to give it a go. You won't regret it!! http://www.c64unlimited.net/gameslist/games_aaa.htm

The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part I

The First Classic

There was a time, not long ago when the image that came to mind of a "computer gamer" was that of a nerdy twelve year old kid with thick glasses, pimples and little hope of ever reproducing, hiding in his room playing games naturally by himself. Sadly that was not that far from the truth back in the 80’s early 90’s, except of course regarding the age of the so called geeks. We know now that in fact most of the "computer nerds" back then, were actually young adults between the ages of 16-35 with thick glasses, pimples and little hope of ever reproducing who hide in their rooms playing games. These unsuspecting gamers were about to kick start one of the soon to be largest entertainment industries in the world, if you can believe it an industry that was in short order going to become main stream. They weren’t just playing games either, they were creating them using imagination and skills that would soon pay as much as a hundred thousand dollars a year.

I was one such nerd and although I wouldn't dare take credit for shaping the gaming industry, I have watched it grow from its infancy and played along every step of the way, even making an occasional contribution now and then. No matter how much laughing and finger pointing I endured for my secret hobby, I like many kids and young adults from that era look back on those early days of gaming with great fondness. Those of us who risked ridicule enjoyed an American sub-culture that was so tightly woven together that even today there is an unspoken recognition by most gamers from those days of what is considered “classic gaming” and what it means to be old school. The rest of this article is dedicated to those card caring nerds from those early days of gaming. If the next few paragraphs triggers an emotional response and you find yourself day dreaming of your wasted youth you can consider yourself to be on the in. If you read the rest of the article and find yourself wondering what the hell this guy is talking about, unfortunately it means you missed “The Golden Age” of gaming.

Having been partial to role-playing games as a result of my exposure to pencil and pencil RPGS games like dungeons and dragons (yes I know I'm a total geek, lets all say it together) the golden age of gaming on the commodore 64 was unmatched. Not that there were that many options as far as systems go, consoles had certainly been around but if you think Pong is classic gaming your kidding yourself. The Atari was certainly an option, but the commodore brought new possibilities to gaming because it was a far smarter machine with far better specs then had been possible up to that point. More importantly however Q-basic and similar programming languages made it possible for closet geeks to create their own games and it wasn’t until then that the golden age of gaming began.



The first and perhaps the most nostalgic game that comes to mind was barely a game, in fact it was nothing more then interactive reading with no graphics to speak of at all. Text based role-playing games like ZORK were so classic, that I can actually remember the feeling of playing the game even now. What made them so amazing was that it gave you control over a story that was there for you not just to read but to discover its secrets, while allowing you to imagine the scenes rather then having graphics feed it to you with a spoon as is the case for all games today. It was very much like RPG games like dungeons and dragons that you could play on your own and perhaps it’s creators intended it to be as such. My favorite part of the game was the fact that you weren’t a fictional character, in fact unless you really read into the game the assumption always was that you were the character. It was a in a way a first person game, assuming you had enough imagination to make it so and the goal was to explore, find treasure and solve the diabolic puzzles created by the twisted minds of Marc Blank and David Lebling.

ZORK defined a new genre of gaming and is easily considered the great grandfather of PC based RPG gaming by most old school gamers. There were plenty of other text based games that deserve their credit in the historical gaming archives, notably the ZORK sequals and the lovable Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. ZORK however holds a special place in my heart and I see the game like a pet that died long ago who could do no wrong. Text based gaming fell of the map rather quickly, replaced by graphical RPG’s, but if you happen to be around for that brief moment in time you were lucky enough to experience gaming in it’s purest form. For anyone who isn’t too jaded to travel back in time to grasp on to a piece of gaming history I strongly recommend taking a crack at ZORK even today.

If you are brave enough to tackle this classic let me be the one to get you started. Lets see if I can remember it now. " You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here. "

Good Luck

Get ZORK for free here http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/zork1.html.