Do ogres look more like shrek..orcs like LotR?

[The Green Adam]

Jungle pic? Not sure which film your refering to. While I'm sure there are far bigger anime fans out there then me, I did spend 5 years working for an anime/manga and Japanese toy distributor and have been a fan since the early 80s.

Anyone who is a D&D fan and has not seen Record of the Lodoss War (the original OVA, not the lesser TV series) should do so right away. Aside from being pretty damn cool in general, it really makes you wonder why we don't have cartoons like this. I mean, it's Western European Medieval Fantasy done right by the Japanese for crying out load! We can't even make a decent D&D movie. Sigh.

Back to the subject at hand, I'm a very visual person. I scour the internet and artbooks to find images of nearly everything in my game and if I can't find it I have one of my players draw it (or I draw it myself). What things look like is very important to my players and I becuase, well, it's how my gaming style developed over the years. I was inspired by a combination of books, comic books and film. Thing is, I never limit the appearence of anything to one source unless I'm reflecting that source on purpose (for example if I'm running a World of Warcraft RPG I don't redesign Night Elves - I say they look like they're supposed to look).

I've gotta say, the end results are killer. My campaign books are 2" or 3", three-ring binders with the clear 'insert-your-own-image' plastic covers. They are filled with drawings and designs.

AD

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I love that game! Such a shame that only made it to the Japanese Sega Saturn IIRC. {Shame that was only a 2 player as well.]

Ohhhhhhh don't I feel your pain. I've been dying for some red dragon-then-lich pwnage for years. I remember where all the secret rooms are too. :|

 

[Remathilis]

Ohhhhhhh don't I feel your pain. I've been dying for some red dragon-then-lich pwnage for years. I remember where all the secret rooms are too. :|

My friend bought the game. We modded a Saturn and everything. Then all the text was in Japanese. Biggest letdown of our young lives.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

My friend bought the game. We modded a Saturn and everything. Then all the text was in Japanese. Biggest letdown of our young lives.

I think if I played that, I'd find that even if it's in Japanese...well, I pretty much have the whole damn thing memorized.

I have a friend who has been looking for the arcade cabinet for years. Amazingly hard to find apparently. He still has Dragon's Lair and Space Ace though.

 

[Someone]

I have both (Tower of doom and Shadows over mystara) as emulator files and sometimes play them. I won't gove you urls, since I don't exactly know if downloading them it's legal or not.

 

[frankthedm]

I have a friend who has been looking for the arcade cabinet for years. Amazingly hard to find apparently. He still has Dragon's Lair and Space Ace though.

I fed a lot of quaters in D&D:ToD. I only saw Shadow over Mystara Once at Wizard world chicago.

 

[frankthedm]

I have both (Tower of doom and Shadows over mystara) as emulator files and sometimes play them. I won't gove you urls, since I don't exactly know if downloading them it's legal or not.

It is best not to discuss that here.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I fed a lot of quaters in D&D:ToD. I only saw Shadow over Mystara Once at Wizard world chicago.

I wasn't as crazy about Shadow Over Mystara because the fighting "engine" and jumps were tweaked (running and jumping? Nixed. You could run and then do a normal slow jump. :\ ) Plus the level bosses had this amazing ability, where if they were low on points, they suddenly became REALLY hard to hit, then kill your character, forcing you to plunk down another quarter and hey! fancy that! the boss was suddenly easy to kill again.

I also preferred the design of the troglodytes, manticore and displacer beast from this series over the 3E Monster Manual illustrations as well:

- this one's from Shadow Over Mystara. Hard to see, but there's also a nagpa in there.

Also an interview with the dude who designed the storyline of the game:

http://www.fantasyanime.com/valhalla/ddarcade_interview.htm

It was designed as a PnP D&D adventure first, then translated into a game once playtested.

 

[Arkham]

My orcs look like the dudes from Star Wars.
My ogres look like the ones in Time Bandits.
My Trolls look like standard 3.x trolls, but less gaunt. They are fairly close to as described in the 3 Billy Goats Gruff.
My halflings look like Rankin-Bass Hobbits, at least in my mind.
My elves look like Vulcans.
My gnomes look like David the Gnome, and sound like either Tom Bosley or Sean Connery for the males, and Angela Lansbury for the females.
My goblins look like smaller LotR orcs.

 

[Remathilis]

My college had ToD for a while. But all four sets of controls were broken.

My friend and I like SoM because it had a magic-user and a thief classes. (Our favorites in PnP).

Dang, Now I'm jonsing to play that...