I know that Decision Games has republished a number of old SPI games over the years and has been publishing S&T since 1988. They have the rights to quite a few of them, but I do not know if the ones you are looking for are among them.
Who owns SPI games?
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Glyfair
Explorer
I wouldn't call it that. It did have some nice innovative things. It also had some clunkers that were nice in concept, but the execution was lacking.WSmith said:Back in the 80's my friend Pete claimed DQ was the best RPG ever created. I never got to try it though (I was a TSR snob.)
It did have a nice mix between a skill based RPG and a class based RPG (not too far off from the 3E multi-classing system).
It also had a mix between a point buy and random characteristic generation method. You rolled to see how many points you had to distribute among your stats. If you rolled low you were allowed to have higher stats, if you rolled high then your stats were more limited. To get that "18" you needed to have pretty poor stats elsewhere. If your stats were overall high, then you tended to have a lot of medium high stats (the equivalent of 14-15, as I recall).
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
Consider that we were coming from a largely D&D background, it was pretty damn innovative:
* Essentially classless; you bought ranks in weapon skills, magical arts, and a couple professions (eg Ranger)
* XP was awarded per session, with more or less depending on how well the party did achieving their objective. No XP just for killing stuff and taking their loot
* WP/VP damage system (called Fatigue and Endurance) and a critical hit system that rocked. Fights could go from a cakewalk to deadly in a heartbeat. You'd actually see capable parties beating a strategic retreat when they were out of fatigue, something we never saw in D&D
* Armor provided damage resistance, shields made it harder to hit. Pretty much exactly like one would expect.
* Essentially classless; you bought ranks in weapon skills, magical arts, and a couple professions (eg Ranger)
* XP was awarded per session, with more or less depending on how well the party did achieving their objective. No XP just for killing stuff and taking their loot
* WP/VP damage system (called Fatigue and Endurance) and a critical hit system that rocked. Fights could go from a cakewalk to deadly in a heartbeat. You'd actually see capable parties beating a strategic retreat when they were out of fatigue, something we never saw in D&D
* Armor provided damage resistance, shields made it harder to hit. Pretty much exactly like one would expect.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
WSmith said:I just bought Dragonquest from someone and waiting for it to arrive. Back in the 80's my friend Pete claimed DQ was the best RPG ever created. I never got to try it though (I was a TSR snob
We played DragonQuest for a few months. It was an interesting diversion (though really the major thing I remember about it was that one specialized in environments as a Ranger, and they used the standard wargaming-style terrain types, so one could be a 'Ranger of Waste'. People thought that was amazingly funny) but after you played it for awhile you realized why it seemed so cool and yet so familiar: it used bits and peices of every other RPG around at the time. You had D&Dish classes, an experience system that let you pay so much XP for such and such an ability, Wizard/Melee-like combat concepts (including things like 'four hex creatures'), etc. Honestly, you could have made it a good D&D 2E in many ways.
Now, you have two editions of DragonQuest: The SPI edition and the TSR/SPI edition. They are not the same animal at all. One major thing is that this was during TSR's 2E phase; first edition DQ had all the demons from SPI's game of the same name which featured not made up stuff like Vrocks but 'real world actual name' demons and their powers. Those are gone in the TSR DQ and is the quickest way (other than the red 'Second Edition' lable on the cover
to determine what edition you have); in fact I think the entire college of Demonology was gone. I seem to remember them making a number of other changes that at the time said to me 'We want to take this game that maaaaybe could have been a significant challenge to us, change the current edition to the point of unplayability so we can say 'Ooooh, it just didn't sell so we killed it' rather than 'we bought SPI to kill off a potential RPG rival'"
WSmith
First Post
I have had TSR's 3rd edition of DQ for a long time, but I can't remember which box I have it packed away in. I read some of it once, but most of the online DQ fans said it was very watered down and not worth the effort, and to just get the revised 2nd edition (which most online DQ fans I talk to seem to favor.) So I packed it away. The set I am getting is a box set with three rule books, so it is either the 1st edition or the first run of the second edition. I will let you know when it gets here.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
WSmith said:
Oho; looking at wikipedia says that's the first edition. I have the second edition pre TSR since I have the all-in-one book. Revised second was the TSR/SPI edition.
http://www.dragonquest.org/
Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
When I replaced the stuff that had been lost, I ended up with a 1st Edition (the ebay auction wasn't intentionally misleading, just not clear). I'd like to pick up a copy of 2nd Ed some day, as that's what we always played.
I miss the old Ares magazine, too. It was an awesome collection of stuff (I'd argue that it rivaled Dragon at the time), and a great deal. All too short lived, though. It was the Arena of Death issue that got us into Dragonquest.
I miss the old Ares magazine, too. It was an awesome collection of stuff (I'd argue that it rivaled Dragon at the time), and a great deal. All too short lived, though. It was the Arena of Death issue that got us into Dragonquest.
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