A Non-review of Champions of Krynn

I was told I would love Baldur's Gate. And from what I have heard and read, it is great. However, I need a new hard drive in my laptop before I can play. Me, being me, I got a copy of the SSI Gold box from Steam while I wait for this hard drive to arrive. 

So, here we are: 

This is nothing like Baldur's Gate. But it does bring back memories. The SSI games were the greatest implementation of the AD&D rules as a tactical game. 10 of 10 for that. It is a very strict version of AD&D, but they did it very well. 

I am not reviewing Champions today, even though I played it when it came out. The issue is time compression. I've got all of the Gold Box games jammed in my head. I remember what happened the last time I was in Krynn, and it didn't go well. 

I got my hands on DL-1 Dragons of Despair, and my player didn't get it. By 1988, I had Champions and tried again. The gang still hated it. The reason is that my normal free-form play is very fairytale-like, complete with voice. That is the opposite of Dragonlance. This was amplified by my getting the setting in my head from the SSI game. I was simply confusing them by not understanding what they failed to understand. 

Hmm. I had to do a mashup of Dragonlance, Fritz Lieber, and Dungeonland before my players would even engage with the wonderful world of Krynn. Click that link to read more. 

Anyway, now that I have both the SSI Gold Box games and paper copies of the Dragonlance modules, I want to revisit and review them all. You can check out copies of Dragonlance here on DTRPG. 

One of the failings of Dragonlace is that it came out as both e1 and second edition, which was a nightmare for DMs and players alike. D&D, AD&D e1, AD&D e1 Unearthed Arcane, and AD&D 2nd edition are wildly different beasts, and having a single setting title hit shelves in this period was a rotten deal.  

Topical Topic

I haven't been posting regularly and tried to lead my Dungeonland review with a massive tangent on current events. I have made this its own post. 

I've mentioned my love of Disney. but I have yet to mention my wife's love of Lewis Caroll. When we first met, I pigeonholed her as a non-reader. I was very wrong, she is merely a non-book collector. I was shocked to find that she had read everything by Lewis Caroll, Poe, and T.S. Elliot plus many, many more. She reads something and disposes of the book. 

Blasphemy! How could you get rid of books you read and liked? We are still working on this issue.

This is one of those odd times where our interests collide on a topical subject and also highlights the need for patrons of this website.

How do a D&D module, Lewis Caroll, and patrons merge with current events?

AI, of course. 

I imagine that most of the people reading this site expect me to produce my own content, with my own opinions no matter how odd or off-beat they may be. It's a matter of getting a different perspective. By way of example, I did a review on dx/db. The author dropped in to say thanks, while some of my readers on social media absolutely hated this title and said so. 

Well, I engaged with both and everyone is happy. This website is a service to people of all kinds and perspectives. And I thank them for those differing views. 

Let me take a moment to thank some major backers of this website: Blackrazor, Pulp 716, and a co-worker. 

Blackrazor provided dozens of games after the house fire. Pulp 716 provided a safe haven for my family after the same. It's a wonderful place to meet up, buy THEN read comics, and relax. And my unnamed coworker provided a fabulous Macbook, which comes in handy for writing posts for These Old Games. 

My coworker hit the nail on the head when he asked, "How is that useful? What can you do with a computer too old to connect to the internet?" 

The answer to that is easy, I use it to disconnect from the internet. He didn't see the value in that until I showed him my workflow and then it all made sense. Basically, I write my text and note what sort of image I want in my post on the iBook. Then I can sneaker-net a USB drive between computers and use Blogger's integration with Photos to get the images from my phone. 

Very rarely do I type directly into the Blogger interface, usually only to change wording or kill a typo not found by Apple Works and whatnot. Today, I tried to use it for speed and ease of use. 

Yeah, wrong. 

The interface has broken down. I am experiencing a corporate AI takeover. I use Chrome and Blogger plus Grammarly. At some point, the various spell-checking options switched to highly aggressive mode. It's crazy, I can't really type anything in the standard interface without getting a mess of suggestions that make no sense.  

I've turned it all off which was about as effective as turning off Skynet was. 

On top of this, I have noticed the integration with Photos has gone off, like 6-day-old Chinese food on a soft taco shell. It could work, but I am taking chances. 

If I didn't have the refuge of my good ol' iBooks, I'd be screwed. 

Note to Self: Mistakes were Made...

I've known about this for years, but there is a way to turn off the keyboard on a laptop. About once every 3-5 years, one of my cats walks across my laptop and the whole keyboard goes dead except for a couple of navigation keys and the Fn keys. 

Maddening. 

Since it doesn't happen that often, I never remember the keystroke necessary to fix it. 

For the record and for the next time, the keystroke is Control+Alt+L. 

The Great International Paper Airplane Construction Kit

I found this book in a stack of computer manuals. It isn’t a game, but boy was it a lot of fun.

I don’t seem to have the disc, but as I recall it had clipart to customize the planes before printing.