The CRPG Renaissance, Part 4: Long Live Dungeons and Dragons

Interesting! I was a very active PC gamer and fantasy CRPG addict at this time. I was picking up everything from story-driven epics like Planescape: Torment, to cheesy hack-and-slash classics like Might and Magic VI to half-baked hybrids like Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance. And I definitely played the Descent shareware. But I have no recollection of ever seeing or hearing about Descent to Undermountain. Must have been quite the turkey.

feoren · 6 months ago

> Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance

Wow, it's wild to see this mentioned; I don't think I've ever known anyone else who played it. I sank way more time into that game than it deserved, blasting armies with the bugged Turn Undead spell that would incinerate everyone. Its campy voice acting has wormed its way into my brain so much that I still randomly say things like "tremble ... before the presence of TAO-QUAZAR!" I never figured out what law holdings do, though.

allturtles · 6 months ago

I pretty much had to get it because I owned the Birthright Campaign Setting box set and loved the setting concepts and art style. Of course Birthright was one of those "never should have been published" product line flops that helped generate TSR's downfall per the previous entry in this series! It all connects. :-)

Gorgon's Alliance was also the game that made it sink in for me that the 'real' Sierra / Sierra On-Line of my childhood was dead.

markus_zhang · 6 months ago

I never played any PNP D&D but I love reading the materials.

Birthright seems like some interesting, obscure product that TSR pushed out back in the day when there was diversity in them.