Literature Review
Peer to Peer
Knowledge Based Article on Dungeon & Dragons as a Strategy Game/Simulation Programming
Pool of Radiance is a computer role-playing game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1988. It was the first computer adaptation of TSR’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D or D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It is the first in a four-part series of D&D computer adventure games. The other games in the “Gold Box” series used the game engine pioneered in Pool of Radiance, as did later D&D titles such as the Neverwinter Nights online game. Pool of Radiance takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, with the action centered in and around the city of Phlan.
Just as in traditional D&D games, the player starts by building a party of six characters, deciding race, sex, class and ability scores for each. The player’s party is enlisted to help the city by clearing out the marauding inhabitants which have taken over. The characters move on from one area to another, ultimately confronting the powerful leader of the evil forces. During play the player characters gain experience points, which allow them to increase their capabilities. The game primarily uses a first-person perspective, with the screen divided into sections to display pertinent textual information. During combat sequences, display switches to a top-down perspective.
Generally well received by the gaming press, Pool of Radiance won the Origins Award for “Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988”. Some reviewers criticized the game’s similarites to other contemporary games and its slowness in places, but praised the game’s graphics and its role-playing adventure and combat aspects. Also well-regarded was the ability to export player characters from Pool of Radiance to subsequent SSI games in the series.
Pool of Radiance is based on the same game mechanics as the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule set. As in many role-playing games (RPGs), each player character in Pool of Radiance has a character race and a character class, determined at the start of the game. Six races are offered, including elves and halflings, as well as four classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, and thief). Non-human characters have the option to become multi-classed. During character creation, the computer randomly generates statistics for each character, although the player can alter these attributes. The player also chooses each character’s alignment, or moral philosophy; while the player controls each character’s actions, alignment can affect how NPCs view their actions. The player can also customize each character’s appearance and clothing. Alternatively, the player can load a pre-generated party to be used for introductory play. These characters are combined into a party of six or less, with two slots open for NPCs. Players create their own save-game files, assuring character continuation regardless of events in the game. On an MS-DOS computer, the game can be copied to the hard-disk drive. Other computer systems, such as the Commodore 64, require a separate save-game disk.
The game’s “exploration” mode uses a three-dimensional first-person perspective, with a rectangle in the top left of the screen displaying the party’s current view; the rest of the screen displays text information about the party and the area. During gameplay, the player accesses menus to allow characters to use objects; trade items with other characters; parley with enemies; buy, sell, and pool the characters’ money; cast spells, and learn new magic skills. Players can view characters’ movement from different angles, including an aerial view. The game uses three different versions of each sprite to indicate differences between short-, medium-, and long-range encounters.
In combat mode, the screen changes to a top-down mode, where the player decides what actions the characters will take in each round. These actions are taken immediately, not after all commands have been issued (as is standard in some RPGs). Optionally, the player can let the computer choose character moves for each round. Characters and monsters may make an extra attack on a retreating enemy that moves next to them. If a character’s hit points (HP) fall below zero, he or she must be bandaged by another character or the character will die. The game contains random encounters, and game reviewers for Dragon magazine observed that random encounters seem to follow standard patterns of encounter tables in pen and paper AD&D game manuals. They also observed that the depictions of monsters confronting the party “looked as though they had jumped from the pages of the Monster Manual.”
Different combat options are available to characters based on class. For example, fighters can wield melee or ranged weapons; magic-users can cast spells; thieves have the option to “back-stab” an opponent by strategically positioning themselves. As fighters progress in level, they can attack more than once in a round. Fighters also gain the ability to “sweep” enemies, effectively attacking each nearby low-level creature in the same turn. Magic-users are allowed to memorize and cast a set number of spells each day. Once cast, a spell must be memorized again before reuse. The process requires hours of inactivity for all characters, during which they rest in a camp; this also restores lost hit points to damaged characters.
As characters defeat enemies, they gain experience points (XP). After gaining enough XP, the characters “train up a level” to become more powerful. This training is purchased in special areas within the city walls. In addition to training, mages can learn new spells by transcribing them from scrolls found in the unsettled areas. Defeated enemies in these areas also contain items such as weapons and armor, which characters can sell to city stores.
Pool of Radiance was the first official game based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The scenario was created by TSR designers Jim Ward, David Cook, Steve Winter, and Mike Breault, and coded by programmers from Strategic Simulations, Inc’s Special Projects team. The section of the Forgotten Realms world in which Pool of Radiance takes place was intended to be developed only by SSI. The game was created on Apple II and Commodore 64 computers, taking one year with a team of thirty-five people. This game was the first to use the game engine later used in other SSI D&D games known as the “Gold Box” series. The SSI team developing the game was led by Chuck Kroegel. Kroegel stated that the main challenge with the development was interpreting the AD&D rules to an exact format. Developers also worked to balance the graphics with gameplay to provide a faithful AD&D feel, given the restrictions of a home computer. In addition to the core AD&D manuals, the books Unearthed Arcana and Monster Manual II were also used during development. The game was originally programmed by Keith Brors and Brad Myers, and it was developed by George MacDonald. The game’s graphic arts were by Tom Wahl, Fred Butts, Darla Marasco, and Susan Halbleib.
Pool of Radiance was released in June 1988; it was initially available on the Commodore 64, Apple II series and IBM PC compatible computers. A version for the Atari ST was also announced. The Macintosh version was released in 1989. The Macintosh version featured a slightly different interface and was intended to work on black-and-white Macs like the Mac Plus and the Mac Classic. The screen was tiled into separate windows including the game screen, text console, and compass. Graphics were monochrome and the display window was relatively small compared to other versions. The Macintosh version featured sound, but no music. The game’s Amiga version was released two years later. The PC 9800 version 『プール・オブ・レイディアンス』 in Japan was fully translated (like the Japanese Famicom version) and featured full-color graphics. The game was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System under the title Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance, released in April 1992.
The original Pool of Radiance game shipped with a 28-page introductory booklet, which describes secrets relating to the game and the concepts behind it. The booklet guides players through the character creation process, explaining how to create a party. The game also included the 38-page Adventurer’s Journal, which provides the game’s background. The booklet features depictions of fliers, maps, and information that characters see in the game. The package also included a translation decoder wheel. After the title screen, a copy protection screen was displayed consisting of two pictures and a line. The player was required to use the decoder wheel to line up the pictures, then enter the word revealed on the decoder wheel. After three unsuccessful attempts, the game automatically shut down.
D&D Meets the Electronic Age
In 1979, Gangbusters creator and Original D&D Discussion contributor Rick Krebs had a D&D campaign called “Realm of the Celestial Wizard” when he wrote the following:
We were one of those fortunate groups to gain the use of a 4K (4,000 bit) memory, BASIC speaking microcomputer. We mentioned to several fellow DMs and gamers of our plans to program it to handle role playing games (D&D, Boot Hill), and to my surprise there was a lot of concern about letting a machine become a part of role playing games.
Quoted from the article “D&D Meets the Electronic Age” in Dragon (Issue 26 – Jun 1979), p. 26.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss the relationship between early D&D and computers. It sometimes seems today’s grognards still don’t like to mix computers and D&D. And I’m not sure why. Not oldschool? D&D’s founding fathers both got into the computer gaming industry—
Dave Arneson: Computer company founder and Professor of computer game design. Quoting from Dave Arneson’s official website: In 1978,
Arneson stepped into the computer industry. He founded 4D Interactive Systems, Inc., a computer company in Minnesota that is still in business today. He also did some programming and worked on several games. He eventually found himself consulting with computer companies.
Living in California in the late 1980s, he had a chance to work with special education children. Upon returning to Minnesota, he pursued teaching and began speaking at schools about educational uses of role-playing. In the 1990s, he began working at Full Sail, a private university that teaches multimedia subjects, and continues there as a professor of computer game design.
According to their projects page, 4D Interactive Systems, Inc. programmed several game titles for Avalon Hill, including Guns of Fort Defiance, Computer Acquire, Computer Stocks & Bonds, and Computer Baseball Strategy.
Gary Gygax: computer RPG game developer. Let me get this out of the way first: Gary Gygax did made some negative comments specifically about online computer games, as quoted in a New York Times article:
“There is no intimacy; it’s not live,” he said of online games. “It’s being translated through a computer, and your imagination is not there the same way it is when you’re actually together with a group of people. It reminds me of one time where I saw some children talking about whether they liked radio or television, and I asked one little boy why he preferred radio, and he said, ‘Because the pictures are so much better.’”
But in a previous interview with Ciro Alessandro Sacco, Gygax expresses love for computer games and has even worked on developing them!
- “I do have several builder/strategy and tactical historical games around that I would love to see as computer ones,…”
- “I’m [in] the process of developing RPG-like games for the computer”—a reference to Lejendary Adventure, which began as a computer roleplaying game and became a tabletop game because of “two botched deals, not [Gary’s] fault”
In Krebs’s article, he finds a balance between the DM’s imagination and the cold mathematical logic of the computer:
An analysis of D&D reveals that movement around a dungeon (which way to go, which door to open, should we fight or run, how do we disarm the trap, etc.) is basic logic (sometimes good logic, sometimes bad) problem solving that can be broken into a mathematical or a computer flow chart. But, the contents of the rooms, how monsters react, what a chamber looks like is an art that a DM develops from experience and use of his/her imagination. So why not let the computer handle the mechanics and the DM handle the material. With the computer doing part of the job it leaves the DM more time to be creative and interact with the players.
So what did Krebs’s computer program, SAGE, do for his campaign? (And Rick: If you’re reading this, can you please talk about SAGE? Do you still have the BASIC source code to SAGE???)
- hit charts and damage allocation
- name generation (for the thousands of minor NPCs)
- creating requisites and levels of non-player characters
- handling the bookkeeping details on player characters
- basic Dungeon that runs itself
Krebs concludes:
the fear that the use of a micro computer will destroy the creativity of role playing games if used in them is groundless. Our experience in recent months has been very positive in SAGE’s use in both D&D and Boot Hill (our program for Gamma World is not finished yet), and if anything, has helped this DM in handling his chores…
The micro computer has its place in role playing gaming as long as its limitations are understood, and the human programmer remembers that his duty is in creativity, while the computer can and should only speed up the mechanics. The computer provides the skeleton for gaming, and the DM still creates the flesh of the campaign.
Oldschool computer games
“The computer in gaming ha[d] been around awhile” when Krebs penned this article for Dragon in 1979. Will Crowther programmed Colossal Cave Adventure for his daughters after playing D&D in 1975. This early computer game would later became the highly successful interactive fiction game, Zork, along with numerous sequels. “Adventure” was originally written in 700 lines of FORTRAN. (The code is archived here.) Here’s a screenshot of the beginning of “Adventure”:
Inspired by “Adventure,” Glenn R. Wichman wrote Rogue in 1980. This was also a dungeon crawl, but it differed from “Adventure” in two main ways. (1) The dungeon was randomly generated on-the-fly, not fixed. (2) A map of the dungeon was written to the screen in ASCII characters—it wasn’t an interactive fiction game. “Rouge” begat many other “Rogue-like” games, like Nethack in 1987, which is still going strong today. “Rogue” was originally written in C on a UNIX machine, but later got ported to PC and Mac in 1984. Here’s a screenshot of the first level of “Rogue” after clearing it of monsters and treasure:
So “Adventure” was FORTRAN and “Rogue” was C. But by the early 1980s, BASIC would become the lingua franca of computer games and game aids, because every brand of personal computer (TRS-80, Commodore, Apple, IBM, …) had a BASIC interpreter. I already mentioned that that Rick Krebs’s program SAGE was written in BASIC.
In 1978, David H. Ahl compiled a book of 101 BASIC computer games. It’s important to note: He didn’t write these games, merely compiled them together in one book. Many of the games are combat simulators. These programs are all available online today on a few sites in several flavors of BASIC: (1), (2), and (3). I seem to remember some of them getting discussed in Dragon, like StarTrek (Issue #38?).
Besides computer game reviews, Dragon published more than a few BASIC programs in the early ’80s, particularly in “The Electric Eye” column by Mark Herro. Here’s an excerpt from the Dragon index on the subject of computers:
Computers:
ADVENTURE game “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 42(42) Adventure
As game aid “D&D Meets the Electronic Age” Rick Krebs 26(26) OD&D
“DM’s Right-Hand Man(?), The” Roy Earle 36(42) D&D1
“Dungeon Master’s Familiar” John Warren 80(17) D&D1
“Role-Player’s Best Friend, A” M. D’Alfonsi 158(45) —
Avalon Hill games “AH Meets the Computer” Tom Wham 41(32) —
Basic information about “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 33(50) —
Character creation program “What Do You Get When You…” Joseph C. Spann 74(42) D&D1
Combat “Combat Computer” L. & T. Hickman 74(40) D&D1
Dice “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 45(56) —
Dungeon Master utilities “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 41(44) D&D1
“Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 49(76) D&D1
Glossary of terms “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 39(40) —
Home “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 46(70) —
Online gaming: Getting started “Online Gaming: Get In the Game!” Michael Blake 312(90) —
Programming: BASIC “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 40(46) —
Purchasing “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 50(70) —
Quiz “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 54(74) —
Answers “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 55(48) —
Software “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 36(62) —
SPACE GAMES-3 “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 43(70) —
Sports games “Electric Eye, The” Mark Herro 47(70) —
TRAVELLER use of “In Defense of Computers” Paul M. Crabaugh 51(13) Traveller
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