D&D General Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games

[TheHand]

At the start of every session, he asks a code wheel security question, and if the players fail three times, he shuts down the game and goes home.

Dang, if only I’d have thought of that!! Ok, next time!

 

[jolt]

Sorry to digress, I have all these games through Steam. How do you access the Gold Box Companion UI?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Sorry to digress, I have all these games through Steam. How do you access the Gold Box Companion UI?

When you get to this screen, make sure where it says "Gold Box Companion" that the square next to it is filled. If it's blank, then GBC won't load.

 

[Seramus]

And I definitely disagree concerning DQoK; the middle section, where it's endless fights with dark wizards and enhanced draconians, really bogs the game down, worse than even SotSB's endless corridors...

I agree here. Sure Secret's long tunnels were the Deep Roads long before Dragon Age, but that wizard/draconian spam could one shot your characters and that was negative fun coming from endless trash fights.

I wish every gold box game used set numbers of encounters. I love it when games do that.

 

[YouMeetInATavern]

I’ve actually adapted and run the TTRPG version “Ruins of Adventure” about 4 times over the years, as recently as 2 years ago (converting it to 5e) and using props out of the old journal books.

Interesting. I got RoA, but felt it was so lacking compared to PoR I went through the PC game to do a conversion. I think getting to the "Slums" section in RoA and finding it is nothing but an empty 16x16 map with a few random encounters lost me hard. It couldn't win be back after that haha.

 

[TheHand]

Interesting. I got RoA, but felt it was so lacking compared to PoR I went through the PC game to do a conversion. I think getting to the "Slums" section in RoA and finding it is nothing but an empty 16x16 map with a few random encounters lost me hard. It couldn't win be back after that haha.

It’s probably more accurate to say that I took Ruins as my framework but built in top of it all the missing details from Pool of Radiance that I liked… leaving me with kind of a “greatest hits” (IMO) of the 2 works.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Interesting. I got RoA, but felt it was so lacking compared to PoR I went through the PC game to do a conversion. I think getting to the "Slums" section in RoA and finding it is nothing but an empty 16x16 map with a few random encounters lost me hard. It couldn't win be back after that haha.

RoA doesn't even have the same map of the Slums as PoR does. Granted, the PoR map is horrible, as I've mentioned, and doesn't make very much sense with buildings and open areas scattered about with no rhyme or reason. At least the RoA map looks like you'd think what a stereotypical fantasy slum would look like, with twisty alleyways leading off in random directions. It would be interesting to remap the actual encounters from PoR onto the RoA map...

For those interested, here is the Slums map from the PoR cluebook:

And the map from the Ruins of Adventure module:

Sokal Keep (called Sokol Keep in RoA) looks very different between the two as well (no maps yet since I haven't finished Sokal Keep in the game yet), but, somewhat surprisingly, most of the other maps are either similar or exactly the same.

 

[YouMeetInATavern]

It’s probably more accurate to say that I took Ruins as my framework but built in top of it all the missing details from Pool of Radiance that I liked… leaving me with kind of a “greatest hits” (IMO) of the 2 works.

Good way to use it. Even though it didn't grab me, I still took what I could from Ruins, but my goal was to try and capture the "vibe" of Pool, so I used it's content wherever possible (minus stuff like endless mazes and X random encounters to clear kind of thing). Just started playing it with my group, so hopefully that approach works out.

 

[YouMeetInATavern]

Granted, the PoR map is horrible

Definitely a pain when you're doing the bolt back to town.

Sokal Keep (called Sokol Keep in RoA) looks very different between the two as well (no maps yet since I haven't finished Sokal Keep in the game yet), but, somewhat surprisingly, most of the other maps are either similar or exactly the same.

There are some that are identical (clearly working from the same source material), but then others are completely different. Library, Textile House, Pyramid and Graveyard being examples. There's no reason they should be the same, it's just interesting some are and some aren't.

 

[Demetrios1453]

OK, I've ventured into Sokal Keep, and had another of the famous battles of the game there. I'll have it all written up tomorrow!