Pool of Radiance: Video Game Design in D&D | D&D Walkthroughs
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Patreon: / dmitall
Our newest episode is out! In it, we discuss the first D&D adventure to be converted into a video game: The Ruins of Adventure. This module was released as a tie in to the Pool of Radiance video game which would become the first of the Gold Box series. We also take this opportunity to discuss the history of the Forgotten Realms, the default setting for D&D.
Title: Old 90s PC Boot sequence HQ (Burcica (do Not Hack)), Manual Typewriter Sound Effect (Sound Effect), Pool of Radiance for Commodore 64 (Mrsparkle001)
Main Clips: Pool of Radiance Microsoft DOS (Sinator) Pool of Radiance Nintendo NES (Kelsy Polnik), Ruins of Myth Drannor (VideoGameCinema), Neverwinter Nights (neverwintervault.org: Chris Fowler), Neverwinter Nights 2 (neverwintervault.org: Markus Wayne Schlegel)
Chapters:
00:00: Intro
05:17: The City of Phlan
18:14: Into The Wild
32:08: Final Judgment
D&D Book Sources: Ruins of Adventure, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Dragon Magazine, Battlesystem: Bloodstone Pass, Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms, 1e Oriental Adventures, 1e Dieties & Demigods, 2e Faiths & Avatars, 3e Complete Arcana, 3e Faiths and Pantheons, 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms, Darkwalker on Moonshae, The Crystal Shard
Video Game Clips: Computer Bismark, Battle of the Bulge: Tigers in the Snow, Pokemon Red/Blue (Redicebergz), Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (AFGuidesHD), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Playstation 2 (UPlayNetwork), Oregon Trail, Castlevania 64 (David Or ELSE), Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (GWJumpman)
Other: "Ed Greenwood at Gen Con" by John La Sala (Wikimedia Commons), Crisis on Infinite Earths (DC Comics), Computer Gaming World Magazine (cgwmuseum.org), nwnarelith.com, Lets Play Archive by Lt. Danger (lparchive.org), Yu-Gi-Oh Stimp Pack Card
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I haven't played Pool or Radiance in 30 years, but I can still point to the room on the map where the trolls are playing/throwing something around, and then ' they turn their attention to you'.
I think that was the hardest battle in my entire gaming experience.
The only way to really level up to get to that encounter was to fight a bajillion orcs in random encounters.
I'm blanking on that room. Where was it exactly? What part of the city?
We always waited until we had two 5th level mages before fighting those trolls. You wanted to fireball them to death in the first round.
@@sirellyn this is from memory. It was in the very first area after you leave the city. The room is near the SW corner of the map, the room is two tiles high by one tile wide.
I played the Hell out of this, Curse of the Azure Bonds and Electronic Arts "The Bard's Tale" games on my Commodore 64. Ahh such grand memories...
100% on all three. plus bards tale 2 and 3.
@@curefanatic1821 yeah I meant all 3 Bard's Tales. Especially Thief of Fate. That one was huge & challenging.
I damn near flunked out of high school thanks to those games.
Right there with you, but on my Commodore 128.
Yessss! I spent so many hours on that game. I could even navigate to Brillhasti without a light. There were some beautiful cheats/glitches to be taken advantage of, like mass producing items. Killing Brillhasti with a level 1 player in your party and it would glitch and level them up to level 20 ish.
Pool of radiance was one of my absolute favorite games growing up thank you for making the video on it
You remember Pool of darkness!?
@@viktorkinkela5178 I ended up being able to play all four of the gold box games I really like the first and third ones the second and fourth were kind of meh
Doesn’t look like much now, but it’s hard to explain just how complex and absorbing this and a few other titles like ‘curse of the azure bonds’ were at the time. The first games on the c64 to genuinely capture some of the original spirit and mechanics of ad&d in a computer format. Simply a stupendous achievement by the developers at the time.
@@collectivesartori They still are. They've aged incredibly well - especially Curse of the Azure Bonds and Gateway to the Savage Frontier. Pool of Radiance is probably the best design-wise but has none of the UI and Quality-of-Life improvements.
This is available on Steam. Along with all of the classic gold box games.
Did UniSoft get its name on the Steam Release?
GOG has all the Gold box games also.
@@mrmanceres7653 and they're drm free
The Krynn ones are the best.
I bought them the first day
I sat with red eyes, big puffy bags underneath them, for so many days in 7th grade because of this game (Pool of Radiance). Plying almost every day from 7PM until 9PM when my mother would tell me to go to sleep, then staying up listening to the local baseball game on my radio, pretending to be asleep until she actually went to bed. Then, I'd pop up, hop off my top bunk onto the floor and go straight to my desk. I twist the knob on my 11 inch color TV, flip the power on the disc drive and the C64, type the classic _"load*,8,1"_ and wait for that screen to pop up. With the volume almost all the way down I'd play until 3 or 4am. Wow I loved that game.
I did drive myself nuts at the end though, not playing for about a month because after killing the Wizard Tyranthraxus and heading to town, thinking I finally won, just to find out I hadn't yet, I had no clue what to do. I went and cleared out all the Fire Giants, over, and over, and over, with zero idea in my 11-year-old brain what the heck was going on. Finally, a friend told me about the secret door I needed to find, but I hadn't marked down what room Tyranthraxus had been in, so I had to go back, clear everything out again, and run into every darn wall in the entire last area. Still, it would be years upon years that any game provided that much excitement, that much pure joy and entertainment for me.
Sure a lot was because I was so young and it was the first real RPG I'd ever played on a computer, but a lot was because of how well made it was for the time it was made. PoR, Secret of the Azure Bonds and Secret of The Silver Blades had no business running as well as they did on a C64.
I played again as a young adult, right after BG1 came out on a Windows 98 PC, and Pool of Radiance still took me about 30 hours to complete, even without the 2 minute loading screens and battles that still ran twice as fast as they were supposed to with a moslo program slowing everything down by 900%.
I'd love to see a remake in a modern engine with real voice actors. I know there was an NwN 1 and NwN 2 fan remake, but I mean full budget here, and preferably turn based. Man this game really was big. It's easy to forget the magic shortbow under the boards in the stable, or what a pain in the ass that troll could be for a group of level 2 and 3 characters. Or how expensive rez spells are for a level 6-8 party. Well I guess thieves could technically go to level 9, and capping Magic-Users at 6 was kinda cruel. Ah well, that was 1E AD&D. No one ever suggested it was fair. It sure as heck was fun though!
Easily one of the best D&D/tabletop channels on RUclips, always a treat when there's a new upload ✌️
I both read the PoR book and played the goldbox game. Loved them both. The nostalgia is very strong with PoR.
The differences between the tabletop module and the actual video game are quite interesting; most of the names are completely faithful, but 'Mantor's Library' became 'Mendor's Library', for instance. Sokal Keep was the second quest in the gold box game, necessary to take any boats out either across the river or around the lake. The Orc and Hobgoblin lairs were essentially erased, although I think some details about them survived as false Journal Entries--and it seems the Domo quest was split partially into two segments, with Ohlo the Wizard in the Slums wanting you to get a mysterious potion for him, and the need to rescue an actual kidnapped boy from Buccaneers to the west (since it was never mentioned, I assume that quest was not included in Ruins of Adventure at all).
The most interesting change might have been the Zhentil Keep scenario--they didn't both trying to implement any kind of 'traitor sequence' with the party (probably would have been difficult with '88 coding anyway) and instead had tidbits of dialogue with Sasha, the clerk, that definitely feel incomplete. When you return from the outpost, Sasha is surprised that you returned so quickly and notes that Councilman Cadorna wagered you wouldn't be returning 'for a long time'. Then you are immediately afterward informed that he is a traitor they want dead or alive. In fact, Cadorna's whole plotline as the evil man behind the scenes is downplayed, with only his ancenstral treasure quest and the Zhentil Outpost quest actually coming from him (although he is slightly more useful if you find him in the Keep--he's the one who gives you the password to the gate).
The slums in Ruins of Adventure are not only different, but bereft of any quests whatsoever. They basically want the players to wander around, with the DM rolling randomly every couple of minutes until everyone gets bored and the DM declares the area cleared.
Any time I have run RoA, I take the PoR quests and insert them into the area just to give the players something to do.
I remember these types of games back in the day. Some of them, you were so short of gold, you just looted daggers from random encounters for hours, to sell them for half price at the vendors and eventually, buying gear worth a damn. The grind was real, but we kept at it.
I played Pool of Radiance (and the other Gold Box titles) on my Commodore 128, bought it for the Amiga, eventually when I bought my first PC (a speedy 50mhz with 170mb hard drive, ah the classic days) I bought them all again. I literally just rebought all of them yet again for my PC here in 2022. I was into DnD before buying the video games but the Gold Box series (and its spinoffs) really made me enjoy the nuances of DnD even more. Anyways, fantastic video. Thank you for taking us through this awesome nostalgic journey!
I've been running a Ruins of Adventure campaign for the past year. I love this gold box game. Thanks for this 😊
Dude, I have no clue why you do not have more subscribers or views. You are one of the best, if not the best channel on dungeons& dragons.
You explain everything extremely well and your video production is impeccable and to top it off. You are a great narrator No other dungeons& dragons channel can pull off all three of those things. Kudos man! Love the videos. Keep them coming!
Wow, I remember playing Pool of Radiance on my old Mac 2! As usual, the graphics were a big step down from their PC counterparts (monochrome vs. 8-bit color, as I recall.) But what a trip to see these game images for the first time in 30 years! And re: SSI, they had an office in Silicon Valley, and back around 1990 I worked as a graphic designer and would occasionally use a service bureau in Mountain View for outputting film or type galleys. From time to time a guy from their art department would be in there using the machines, and I'd get to see what was in development.
I remember playing this on my apple IIc. I bought all the gold box series on steam when it was on sale during 4th of july. I cant wait to replay it again.
I was never able to get the game running. It wanted the user to create all these disks and I kept on getting stuck with needing a disk I needed to access the program to make. I never figured it out and took it back for store credit. I was a little kid at the time.
I played this on my Tandy 1000. I had to wait a year or more for it work on Tandy computers. This released on Apple first. This game was 8 high density floppy disk which was a HUGE game back then. I remember having to repeatedly switch disks to play this game.
Curse of the Azure Bonds would be a good follow up video
I agree. The novel, module, and Gold Box game are all fantastic!
This video brings out so many memories. I started playing D&D two years before this game came out as a GM. I played it as a crack on C64 but soon after I bought the original. I was hooked. I bought all the SSI RPG's: "CotAB", "Secret of the Silver Blades" and "Pools of Darkness", the Dragonlance series and the unfinished set of games that takes place in and around the city of Waterdeep. I later bought them all on Amiga too and finally on PC.
I was lucky to get hold of "Ruins of Adventure" and "Curse of the Azure Bonds" accessory in my local game store. I have run Ruins once to great effect. To have played the computer game (several times) I was fortunate to have a vast knowledge of the area and could set the right pace for my party. Ruins is everything the GM can hope for. I have also picked out a number of small maps inside Ruins and placed them in other campaigns with good effect.
All in all Pool of Radiance and Ruins of Adventure ranks very high in my list of RPGs.
I still have a Pool of Radiance module hardcopy on my shelf, so I was really excited to see you cover this one!
I had no idea that the Forgotten Realms was being considered for the default D&D setting so early in its lifetime. I always figured Greyhawk was the main setting until 4e!
How could you possible think greyhawk was the default setting when forgotten realms was the pretty much the only setting in every box and book and had the most published information?
@@GameTimeWhy Whenever I hear about settings in regards to old school D&D the Forgotten Realms never gets mentioned unless it's talking about it in relation to 5e.
@@TheDoughboy1917 you must have an incredibly small and insulated community you talk to. I've been playing since 2nd edition. Always been forgotten realms.
@@GameTimeWhy Well I apologize if I caused any offense. It was not my intention. I've only been playing D&D (and I've only been able to play 5e groups) for a few years and while I do take an interest in old editions I've only really read the core 1e books, a few 1e monster supplements, the core basic books and a very few of the 2e complete X series. I haven't read many old adventure modules with most of my knowledge of them coming second hand from this channel.
@@TheDoughboy1917 it's fine that you and the other new dnd friends don't know much about older dnd and the settings but it's important to realize that you don't make blanket statements coming from your small sphere of inexperience. There are people who prefer greyhawk or eberon or dark sun or or or but forgotten realms has been the main dnd setting since pretty much the very start.
Pool of Radiance for NES was my favorite NES game. I never beat it though. I usually got to the island of ghosts and lost everybody due to incorporeal undead.
Pool of Radiance was a great back in the days (c64 version.... yes im very old). i hope they make a remake of the game in my lifespan that would be fantastic
I've ran ruins of adventure in 5e and while combat heavy, the plot and open nature is really fun.
Pool of Radiance was amazing on the C64.
I loved how you could basically do anything you wanted and there was a world map to optionally explore. Want to take your lvl1 party to the Graveyard and get smashed by wights, be our guest!
I've played the C64, NES, and dos versions of this module I also DM'd the tabletop version and this is currently the starting area of my 20 years and counting campaign. The potion the wizard Domo is after is an elixir of youth. Which is very valuable to human wizards.
Man did I thrash this when it came out! I got it for the C64, even before I got the machine (about 3 weeks later). There are some good editors out there now, like with auto map etc, for all the AD&D games. (don't know if they work with the EOB games) I use the Gold Box Companion.
I could be wrong, but I think the screenshot from 7:20 is from one of my playthroughs of the game. If so, thank you for using it!
Yes!! You're talking about Pool of Radiance, the very game that got me interested in D&D in the first place!
The king returns! Great to see more of your fantastic, in-depth content.
I played the hell out of this on C64. I actually found a Thri-Kreen dungeon that was not in the the clue book.
Where
@@nunyabizness6376 Some lairs could be found randomly, they are not always in the same place: the thri-kreen lair(i never found it), a wild boars lair, a grove with stygian birds that suck blood.
@@nunyabizness6376 Wish I could remember Its been years and years since I played. I was just wandering the outside area sort of like where Zentil keep was. I tried playing a copy of the game years go but I got frustrated with the way the text was in a separate file and rather than just having a book to read them.
While watching my dad play it (C64) he found one of the hidden dungeons that spawn randomly while wandering the wilderness inside the dungeon was the actual pool of radiance that the game is named after. I never found it myself in all my playthroughs and he never found it again. I have never found a guide, article, or video that mentions it. I hope one day someone finds it while creating video content and uploads proof of its existence.
I completely agree. Ruins of Adventure is a mini-campaign and sourcebook, which you can play for months before you exhaust it. One of the best, imo.
I just finished Pool of Radiance and its quite interesting to see how much Ruins of Adventure differ from it. One thing I found strange is that in the pyramid, there are random encounters with seemingly random people who are described as "smiling at you" but can't be parlayed with and are always hostile. Unless I missed something, there's no explanation for this (although one could infer something from a note from a dead body and a fixed non-hostile encounter, both of which lament that they can't find a way out) and I figured they must be victim's of Yarash experiments, even though nothing is mentioned about him dong something to other races than lizardmen. After learning that RoA explains that they are other adventures trapped in her and VERY hungry, it makes much for sense.
The Cardona subplot is also smaller. You get sent to the textile house and later to Zhentil Keep to get killed, but you're not branded as traitors when you return to Phlan (I suppose that'd be too much of a headache to implement, at least without being too much of a hassle for the player) and Cardona gets found out as one right away. This also makes his reappearance in the castle feel less significant. But then, it practically is, since Tyranthraxus won't actually possess anybody after the dragon is killed, despite trying to. Instead, Bane pulls him into the pool.
It kinda amuses me that RoA shifts your alignment when you do evil things, while PoA allows you to go full murderhobo, killing everyone you come across, including wiping out the entire nomad camp, with no such repercussion. I think none of the Gold Box games even had alignment shifts, not even Unlimited Adventures allows you to do that.
This and Bard's Tale were the first real "complicated" games I played as a single digit age child. I still love this game and regularly sing the music included in that version. I had no idea what I was getting into. I still have clear memories of first seeing the world map. Wow.
I played this game back in middle school…I was so hooked
Oh lawd, I wasn't sure you guys were coming back. 🙌🙌
I always wondered why I couldn't find a pools of radiance scenario book. Now I know why. Thanks for another great video.
I never thought I'd fall asleep until I watched this
I never played the module, but have fond memories of the game.
This is a very unique channel and I'm very happy that I stumbled across it a few months back. Keep up the good work!
What a classic! I remember loading this up on my trusty C64 and getting lost in a fantastic adventure. I created nearly a dozen different parties to take thru Phlan, and when I finally bought the clue book and realized I'd missed a captive princess, I made another party and went back in. Thanks for showcasing this great golden oldie.
Yes the princess in the kobolds lair...sadly she would leave the party when you return outside, and nothing could be done to keep her. The same would happen with Skullcrusher when you go to the council clerk's office, but if you first go to the training hall and remove him, and then add him again after, by doing this you could keep him until the end of the game.
oh man, I remember having the graph paper and pencil out and mapping all of these locations, back before the internet!
You have no idea how glad I am to find out this channel hasn't been abanadoned.
Many years ago, I ran my Party through this adventure. I remember that I had to work for weeks to prepare for our Campaign to start.
There are simply so many twists and turns and details in the Campaign. Bloody brilliant! 😁👍
Thanks for the great vid. 🙏
M 🦘🏏😎
and the module is horribly written :D imho since you basically have to FIND the story as a GM in the book
@@Zanji1234 Don't blame the writer.
I found intelligent and creative ways to make the Campaign last about a year of our lives!
Think creatively.
@@markdowse3572 i don't blame them :) it's just different
I was binging your old vids today hoping for a new one. Happy to see this!
The Gold Box stuff was great. It would be awesome for Hasbro/WotC to do something similar again. Doesn't need the most amazing graphics in fact doing a FF Tactics styled 16 bit game would be great.
TSR is said to have insisted on one systemic change to the Forgotten Realms setting as originally designed. They wouldn't have the brothels. So, every brothel was replaced by a 'fest hall.' There are a LOT of 'fest halls' in the setting.
Ed Greenwood will speak of no other topic
I remember spending hours playing this on DOS back in the day.
loved this game, my fist big exposure to actually playing D&D(apple IIe computer). i had over 100 TSR Dragonlance novels but i didnt know anyone that played D&D, so i was super excited to play when Pools of Radiance came out
There were only 10-20 Dragonlance Novels out when this was released. Tbh I don’t think there are that many even now 34 years later…
I quite like the similar SSI Gold Box game set in Krynn, called Champions of Krynn. I haven’t tried the 2 sequels yet, but I intend to eventually.
I still have a physical copy of Pool of Radiance for PC and C64!
Spent many hours after school playing it along with Curse of the Azure bonds, Secret of the Silver blades plus other Gold Box games.
What a great trip down memory lane. This video has convinced me to pick up Poolrad once again, and I've even now acquired a copy of Ruins of Adventure. Thanks for the wonderful video!
I'd like a 5e adaption of this adventure, the city sounds fascinating.
You can find an adaptation of it in several parts on DMsguild. I got a hold of it when it was released as a free adventure at the start of the pandemic. Search for the name Phlan and 'Pools of Radiance Resurgent'.
Old school adventures don't work well in 5e.
@@sneakyalmond well in my opinion, yes and no.
Yes you are right in that second edition and older modules were designed with a much higher lethality curve. Adventures were tougher, the focus on an adventure module was the challenge. In a way it was similar to people who will buy all the hardest games that they can find and play them. Additionally, prior to Third Edition character design was a lot simpler. You didn't have a lot of special abilities that now exist and those would make some of these Adventures a lot easier.
On the other hand, I say no you are wrong because at the end of the day you can take any of these older modules and keep the framework, but change the traps and the Monsters accordingly. If there are Parts in this module that a 5th edition party would have a much easier time of, change what kind of trap is there. Maybe change the monsters. They still probably won't find it as much of a challenge as old school players did, but there are ways you can make adjustments to give that difficulty accordingly
@@cthulhupthagn5771 not only the lethality, but the resource management and emergent gameplay. Light, food, time, and random encounters were used very effectively to evoke tension and bring out emergent gameplay, which provides depth of gameplay. It would be hard to replicate this in 5e without changing or adding many things and without those dimensions, many of these modules are just simple hack and slash adventures.
the "walking around Phlan" music is always stuck in my head, and my heart
We only had Pools of Darkness when I was a kid. Played the hell out of that game, even learned how to abuse the 'pool' of characters to clone unique items and smuggle gear though elminster's portals.
Still couldn't get past freaking Moander's corpse. Lub-dub my ass, Moander
So many exploitable bugs in the gold box games. That is where my love of exploits originated. It all started with DART! Some kind of overflow bug from splitting darts in the inventory. Although I think it may have been an error handling Easter egg rather than an actual overflow error because of the fact that each type of stackable item could be split and what you got was an overpowered version of that item. Usually.
Gosh I haven't played Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure bonds, or Secret of the Silver Blades in DECADES. I played for countless hours as a kid. Mom hated it of coarse. 😂 Y'all remember the secret decoder rings you had to have to open the game? Early attempts to prevent game sharing. You could just make a copy of each section though and share it anyways. Thanks for this educational deep dive!!! Well done! Great video!
Wow, this takes me way back, to the days of my 'ol Commodore 64. My valiant band of adventurers survived the entire four-game series, and completing Pools of Darkness felt like the end of a saga as a result.
played and beat all the the pools games on my amiga 500 back in the late 80's, all 3 eye of the beholder games on same system. i loved that system.......
🤘Brings back many memories of the summer of '88, playing Pools of Radiance for hours on end, on my Commodore 64, then dialing into local BBS and talking about the game with fellow adolescent geeks 🤘
Glad to see you doing new stuff.
I like that phrase in the beginning, where you mentioned that they moved on to Forgotten Realms because the creators of the prior settings had moved on to other things. That's such a nice way of saying that the owner was forced out of his own company and the game was changed to Second Edition to alter it enough to prevent him from getting any royalties
Thank you for another good video, even though I hardly play D&D anymore it's fascinating to take a tour of its history.
Pool of Radiance (the original) still holds up today, which is pretty amazing.
This is great. I have looked at this adventure several times, and I find the difference between the CRPG and the adventure module very interesting.
Always good to have a new "DM It All" upload! :)
I love your channel, sir. Easily the best! SO I wanted to say in my early D&D youth when I was 16 and owned my first C64 when this game came out. And was my first D&D RPG. I enjoyed the game despite it having so many bugs that it never allowed me to actually finish the game. I have fond memories of it anyway. Thank you for this.
Not being pushy, but I think a perfect fit would be “The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth”.
I think I played this when I was 12, and only vaguely remembered the plot points. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!
Stellar video as always! I am quite pleased to see that "Ruins of Adventure" is finally getting some love. Huge fan of that module (albeit I run it in 2e).
You're alive. Praise be to Pelor and Lathender!
The City of Phlan sounds like a wonderful dessert to me.
That’s exactly what the evil Boss in the game thinks, apparently.
I loved Pool of Radiance on my Commodore 64. Then it came out for the NES and wasn’t as good, but had less loading times. Forgotten Realms was a great setting. Thanks for the video!
I played this on a Commodore 128, it glitched when I was fighting trolls, and thereafter in the game, I had regeneration like a troll, made the game much easier.
Foly huck, that was lucky! 😮
I think that bug exists in all of the computer versions.
I had some friends playing pools of radiance or curse of azure bonds, cannot remember… but they fought a vampire, and one the party was killed. They brought him back, but after that he regenerated hp when dealing damage. And it said at the end of each battle that he took his share and hid it, just like the message for when you hired an NPC.
This takes me back. A videogame that actually came out before I started playing.
Oh man I remember Pool of Radiance! It was my first video game and I played it on my Commodore 64. The only problem with the game was that you were always having to switch out floppy disks.
My first introduction to an RPG was Dragon Warrior on the NES and I loved it, so when I got a C64 I grabbed the only RPG I could find which was Curse of the Azure Bonds, the sequel to Pool. Those Gold Box games were fantastic for the time period and I still give one a playthrough on occasion.
This sounds so much like a video game rpg plot, reminds me of the baldurs gate: dark alliance games the way the adventure shifts to different focuses along the way like the undead bit round the middle and the bookending of cadorna. Tbf i never played dnd so i wouldnt know if thats a common structure to campaigns but hearing it laid out like this it sounds kinda like the blueprint for a number of rpgs in a certain style.
I’d argue that Nerath was the default setting for 4th, with the Core books and early adventures set there. The FR campaign material weren’t released until well into the run.
FR campaign stuff was released two months into 4es run (June 2008-August 2008) but yeah, Nerath/Points of Light is the default setting in the three core books. Apparently, though, Nentir Vale was originally intended to be set in Forgotten Realms before they decided to move it to Nerath (according to the Forgotten Realms wiki)
Always a good day when one of your videos drops. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
31:43 "Plus, Tyranthraxus prefers him, for an unstated reason" (naked chained-up guy appears) That was very funny.
“…by disguising themselves as evil humans.” How would the party do that? Paint their outfits black? Or do they just mean act evil for the auction?
Dress up as cultists? Maybe wear symbols of evil gods?
Goatees.
@@jesperkragrasmussen3986 Logical.
@@jesperkragrasmussen3986 That was one of my guesses. Fake evil facial hair.
Black hats, mustaches to twirl, and monocles.
Just for tackling this you have earned a subscription sir
My biggest gripe about any role playing game is the taking away of a player’s agency.
Sandbox freedom is the best scenario.
There can be laws in kingdoms, countries, cities, towns etc.
These laws can and should be broken sometimes. The railroading of character’s actions has always been my biggest gripe.
Let the player’s do what they want to do. If they suffer consequences for their actions, then so be it.
As long as those consequences are realistic and perhaps known by the characters beforehand.
Bills or decrees can be posted on walls of cities, criers can make announcements, guardsman can inform the populace. There are ways to inform players as to the rules of the land.
Of course there can be corrupt officials, law officers, judges, guards etc.
People can post requests for assistance from adventurers on churches, inns, town halls, etc. the party can then choose which task they would like to undertake. Or they can decide to spend the rest of their lives in a city. Plenty of adventure can be found within a city’s walls, this is up to the game master.
Let’s open up the worlds guys. More freedom. Create hooks to draw adventurers into a campaign, or create strife or present problems that they need to overcome.
It always makes my day to see a new video from DM It All
Best D&D lore/review channel ever
So glad to see this video as I was working on something similar
I remember playing The Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64. I am oldAF.
This is usefull. I'm DMing season 1 from Al which takes place in and round Phlan 150 years after these events.
I'd love to see Goodman Games do an OAR on this one.
That was the first video game series I remember playing, although I never completed the last installment. I miss the simplicity of such games, especially being able to make up my own 6-character party and play with entirely turn-based combat.
in '97 a friend of mine and I started a website to turn his campaign setting into a multiplayer, multi-table campaign that included 150 different players from 70 different table top games around the world. The various DMs would get their material and coordinate the different groups with my buddy as head DM. I mention this because Ed Greenwood left a comment on our website encouraging us. We may have developed the world's first MMO RPG. Sadly my friend fell very ill shortly after and never fully recovered. His campaign of over 20 years lost forever. He was a published author himself and was writing the books of the campaign. Such a shame.
Did a whole play thru of this game. It was great.
When I tell people how old the Forgotten Realms setting is, they always look so shocked. XD
I mean, there's literally no evidence Greenwood actually started writing it when he was 8, or at any other time before D&D was a thing. So it's entirely possible that it's nor remotely as old as claimed, and that it was actually started in the 80s. Now, I'm not calling Ed Greenwood a liar, but... no, I'm calling him a liar. He's a liar. It was a D&D setting invented for D&D in the 80s.
This takes me back 35 years! The first D&D computer game I ever played, on the school's Apple IIe (later on my own at home).
That actually looks like a fun adventure! Thanks!
There are two adventures from this line. If you look for this, also look for Curse of Azure Bonds.
@@jesternario those are the first 2. After Azure Bonds is Secret of the Silver Blades and then Pools of Darkness.
@@SimonAshworthWood Which did not have tabletop modules. I only mentioned the ones that had official modules.
The former upper class area of Phlan is now swarming with monsters? So nothing’s changed then. 😉
You are my new favorite channel, and it's driving me crazy that you no longer put out videos!😢 What a great job you have done on the ones that are here though!
Best moment in these games was my kender cleric soloing a death knight while the entire party had died the first few rounds during Champions of Krynn. Awesome memories....
I love the turn based computer game rpgs. I had Pool Of Radiance on the c64 and later on got Secret Of The Silver Blades on the Amiga 500.
The weight this module/video game has in D&D history cannot be underestimated, even now modules in Phlan continue to appear. Like in D&D Adventures League: "Defiance in Phlan"
I bought my copy of Pool pf Radiance for my C64 at GenCon/Origins in '88. So many studying hours at college lost to it.
They released some collections of the Gold Box games a few months ago on steam. I gotta get back into Pool.
Found Ruins of Adventure surprisingly good for my players wanting to do an evil party campaign, playing a Cult of the Dragon party helping take back the city, playing the same goals for the council but playing politics between an expanded council including Red Wizard, Zhentarium, Hillsfar, Cormyrian, and Sembian mechant members, culminating in freeing the Bronze by making him a dracolich.
I loved these games so much…. Countless hours playing and figuring it out (this was long before you could just google solutions)
So much fun and so we’ll done…
I loved that you could copy your characters over to the next game and continue the story
Really great stuff and I treasure those memories
i made a mistake with Stinking Cloud and made my Hero helpless, and he was "slain with a cruel blow" by an orc. i guess that the life of a mercenary is full of danger, but i could use that plate mail +1 and two-handed sword +1 and then remove him from the party...and i got the msg that "hero is dumped in a ditch"