#xiv and bb be damned

[adarlingwrites]

Absolution

Summary:

noun: formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment

The Capital Wasteland lauded the Lone Wanderer as a hero, a Messiah, a savior who's willing to give her life for the Good Fight. Beyond the legends, the propaganda, and the mythification that surrounded her legacy, there is only one person who knew her bare soul. She gave him his absolution, and now he will fight for hers.

XIV

December 28, 2277.

The inside of my mouth feels dry, and I feel like a brahmin trampled my head. What time is it?

Cracking one eye open, I see the top of Percy’s head nestled into my shoulder, her black hair ruffled, and I lean into her warmth, not wanting to get up. I wrapped an arm around her and settled there. Something soft and warm was pressing against my crotch and my eyes shot open.

I’m fully awake now, and I jolted out of the bed. Looking down, I saw that I’m only dressed in boxers, and Percy was wearing nothing but a scanty red nightgown, splayed on the bed and still soundly asleep.

What the hell happened last night?

Did I touch her?

Women bleed when they do it for the first time, right? Dogmeat whined and barked as I tossed the covers away, checking the mattress for blood.

Then I saw it, specks of red on the white sheets and blood staining her thighs. Fuck. This is not happening. This is not happening. She trusted me and I hurt her. No. No, no, no. No!

I stayed away from her as far as possible, sitting in the corner with my shotgun in my hand, breathing ragged. I feel betrayed by myself, for ruining the only good fucking thing I had in… centuries.

What have I done?

I sat there for fuck knows how long, numb.

Percy stirred awake, stretching her limbs out, complaining about being sore. She greeted me good morning but it barely even registers in my ears. Confused, she looks around, clutching her lower belly, and she locks eyes with me.

“Charon, what are you doing there?”

My lungs felt like they were filled with black smoke. I’m choking on my own spit. I tear my eyes away from her with haste. I feel them getting wet.

“Percy, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

I pointed at the blood on her person. Her eyes widened. If she asks me to eat a bullet, I’d do it.

There, I sat, waiting for judgment.

Waiting for the bomb to drop.

Waiting for the world to end all over again.

My memories of the old world dying came flooding in.

October 23, 2077.

The last nuclear siren was being sounded. I stood with the others, waiting for my next orders, but they never came. Each of us kept our contracts in our breast pocket. We thought we would be discharged the day we won Anchorage back in January. They took away our power armor, and sent us to California.

My home. If I had one to return to, anyway. It’s been seven years...

All of us thought our contracts were finally fulfilled. That we’ve paid for the sins of our fathers.

All of us were dead wrong.

Our contracts changed hands so many times, I cannot even remember all of their names. All I know is we were in charge of protecting influential people. Powerful people. People in the government. Governors. Senators. The President.

People who did not think twice before using us for their amusement. People who did not think twice before asking us to kill a political opponent. People who did not think twice before they ordered us to kill rioting protestors who demanded food while they dined on cube steak.

Cruel people.

Evil people.

Magwayen, our medic and the oldest operative, was sweating bullets, her expression haunted, while Xolotl sits on a rock, resignation in his eyes. Azrael was arguing with Vanth and Anubis, while Valkyrie sat beside me, her fingers tangled through her hair.

I was the only one who stood still.

“They won’t abandon us,” said Vanth. Beside her, Anubis nods, face grim. “They promised us that we’d be free of our contracts once every single one of the necessary personnel are in Control Station ENCLAVE. They promised us!”

“Face it Vanth, the military lied to us. Again. I swear to fucking God, you internalized all that bullshit they taught you,” Azrael yells back. “Look around you. Our superiors are nowhere to be found. We no longer have shock collars on our necks. Our contracts means jack shit. You stupid bitch, we should be taking shelter!”

“Don’t you trust the United States of America?! They said they will be here. They will be here!”

“Trust the USA? Trust the USA?! ” Magwayen finally screams, rabid. “Bullshit! They put us through hell just because someone we’re related to are suspected Reds. I don’t know how I managed to fake gobbling up their anti-commie crap just to avoid a beating, or worse, the fucking shock collar. I was nineteen when they started to torture me into being subservient. I thought that was bad, but look at Charon here! How old was he when he got brought to the facility? Eleven. You trust a government who would do that to a child? ”

“What the hell are you even trying to say, Mag?” Anubis cuts in.

“Don’t you get it? We’re disposable to them. They never treated us as people in the first place. They’ve milked us dry and now they’re tossing us away. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sticking around. I’m finally free of those miserable bastards and I-”

Before Magwayen can finish her rant, Vanth puts a bullet in her head. Mag’s body flops to the floor like a ragdoll. The shotgun blast tore through her skull, bone and mush strewn over the sand.

“What the hell was that for?!”

“You know our orders, Xolotl. Terminate anyone who would run away. If any of you tries to flee I will not hesitate to kill you!”

“This is nuts!”

My fellow operatives were killing each other, while I stood there, watching the mushroom cloud in the distance.

Beside me, Valkyrie is wailing as it grows. The debris was starting to fly towards us. In the corner of my eye, I see it. Valkyrie’s shoving the muzzle of her gun to the roof of her mouth. I don’t even know if I heard a gunshot or another explosion. Probably both.

My legs wanted to run away as I watched the cloud of debris approaching, but I felt the phantom pain of electricity shooting through my neck, tearing through my cheeks, and I stayed where I was. My pants are warm with blood and my own piss, eyes brimming with tears, as I watched the world end.

It was so bright.

Memories of all the crimes I’ve committed in the name of the United States of America bombards me as the heat tore my skin off my body.

I must be in hell and receiving the appropriate punishment.

Watching Percy’s blank expression, I feel like I’m being cooked alive by the heat again.

Waiting to be damned again. I have another sin I have to pay for.

“If you wish to terminate me for this violation, or have me terminate myself, I will gladly do so.”

Percy kneels in front of me.

“What are you talking about? Charon, you did nothing wrong.”

“Nothing wrong? What I did was worse than a violation of our contract. I’ve squandered the trust you put in me and-”

“No, I mean, you really did not do anything, big guy. I’m on my period, Jesus Christ. You didn’t stab me in your sleep.”

A cry I didn’t know I was holding back jumped from my lungs. I tossed my shotgun to the side, and put my arms around her.

“I know you can never hurt me, silly,” she laughed into my chest, muffled.

“I thought I raped you.”

Pulling away from me, Percy looks at me with a dumbfounded expression, which was quickly replaced with pity when she looks at my face. Her thumb wipes away the warm moisture under my eye.

I was crying?

Dammit.

“Oh God, Charon.”

Aside from me fucking crying, it registered to us that I was having another panic attack. We did the same thing we did when the Enclave landed in the memorial. The grounding techniques. The dog licked my face as we went through it. When my heart finally slows down, Percy sighs and takes my hands in hers.

“Charon, I don’t think you’re capable of such a thing.”

“Alcohol impairs judgment.”

“Alcohol isn’t an excuse to touch people without their consent. You’re either an abuser, or you’re not, with or without it.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t feel the need to.

“Look, I haven’t really opened up to anyone about this in detail, not even to Butch or Amata, but remember Stevie?”

I nod. I looked in her eyes and they were somber.

“He was drunk on duty when he caught me using my BB gun in the vault’s lower wards,” Percy almost whispers, voice breaking. “He said he needed to bring me to the vault’s precinct. I did what any scared 16-year old did. Comply.”

“Percy, you don’t have to recount your experiences to prove a point.”

“Let me do this, Charon. I want to do this.”

Sighing, I nod, and she drew closer to me.

“Stevie... he sodomized me,” Percy whispers. “He did it under the influence, and it happened multiple times over the course of months,” she continues, meeting my eyes. Swallowing my own spit felt like choking on stones as I listened to her.

“You didn’t. The fact that you feel terrified at the mere suspicion of doing it says a lot about you. You’re a good person,” my friend tells me, her small hand sliding up my cheek to comfort me.

“No. Percy, I am not. Remember when those bastards in Tenpenny Tower asked you why you were treating me like a person? You said that it was just the bare minimum. That’s just what I did. Bare minimum.”

“Fair,” Percy sighs. “But for what it’s worth? I feel you’re the person I can be piss-wasted vulnerable with. I trust you.”

Feeling the urge to bury my face in her hair, I asked for permission to come closer, and she nods. Inhaling sharply, I let the tears come.

“You put too much trust in me.”

“You’ve proven worthy of it.”

“Percy, I need to say something.”

This angel looks at me with those eyes again. I figured it out now, the emotions they carry. They were brimming with trust and devotion.

“Maybe the talk about the Enclave the night before triggered it, but what happened earlier pushed me over the edge. I had another recall.”

I pause to see if she’s still listening. She was doing so, intently. “Continue.”

“My mind went back to the day the bombs dropped. I was contemplating all the things I did under the Enclave’s employ. The bombs skinning me felt like an appropriate punishment. When I thought I hurt you, I felt like the world was ending all over again.”

Percy squeezes my hand.

“When I said that you were the best thing that happened in my life, I said that with full sincerity. I do not want to risk that in any shape or form. You are my employer, but you’ve treated me far more than a simple employee. I’m not sure...”

The words aren’t coming out.

“Yes?”

I wanted to ask her what the “love you” meant. Does she ever remember it?

She says that to the dog all the time. She can’t be serious. Still, a decrepit part of my mind wanted to bring it up.

Then my mind wanders to the jeers and insults people threw at my mistress for having my company. The dirty, judgmental looks. Their disgust. Surely that “love you” was a lapse in judgment, right?

I better not encourage it.

Perhaps one day I’ll ask her. But not today.

“Nevermind.”

I pull away from her and collect myself.

“You should clean up.”

Percy opened her mouth to say something, but a growl bubbled from her stomach. Blushing, she nods.

“Right. I should. Let’s get something to eat.”

As soon as we’re dressed, Percy curses when she sees the time on her Pip-Boy.

“Fuck, it’s already 2 PM. How long did we sleep?”

“12 hours tops.”

“Okay. Let’s get lunch at Gary’s Galley then hit the road. We need to find Lamplight.”

I raise a brow at her suggestion. “Are you sure we should travel while hungover?”

I follow Percy through the stairs. “There’s no time. We can’t risk the Enclave finding the GECK before we do.”

“If you insist.”

Lunch was mostly quiet. The food tasted bland in my mouth despite being well-seasoned. Percy was chewing on her third Mirelurk cake while I simmered in my own thoughts. Before we got out of the city, Percy entrusted Dogmeat to DeLoria, leaving him with caps and a copy of a key to her house in Megaton.

When we hit the road, I was still thinking about the “love you”, the incident from earlier, and what lies ahead for us. I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings.

That was a grave mistake.

When we approached Anacostia Crossing, they jumped us. The mercs. Talon Company. My senses were sharper than Percy’s and I didn’t sense their presence. I was caught off guard when one of the bastards threw a bag over my head.

Why did I ever allow myself to become this distracted? Goddamn idiot!

I hear it, Percy’s angry yells as one of the men dragged her into the station. I fired blindly at my assailant, but more of them came, beating my head with batons until I was fucking bloody.

My head spinning, they tied me up, and dragged us deeper into the metro. Then, we stopped. One of them forced me to kneel, then ripped the bag from my head.

“We did it boys! We finally caught the little saint from the vault and this ugly motherfucker,” one of them yells in triumph, and I can barely see Percy spitting in his face from the blood that soaked my left eye.

A yelp escapes her when the asshole backhands her, sending her glasses flying backward. “Let’s see if you’re still so feisty after that, bitch.”

Squinting, Percy looks up to him. “Fuck you.”

He hits her again. I was thrashing hard, unable to protect her. One of the Talon mercs whipped my head with the butt of a pistol and I landed hard on the gravel. The fucker squeezed my jaw while forcing me to get up and I bit him, hard enough to draw blood.

“Argh, fuck! The zombie bit me!”

“Put him down already!”

“Not yet. I wanna watch him suffer while we rough up his girlfriend.”

“Do not fucking touch her,” I growled.

“You know what? I have an idea,” said their ringleader. “Boys, time for some torture.”

I lunged forward, my skull colliding with the bastard’s cheek. Percy takes this opportunity to slip from one of the mercs’ grasp, but his hand caught her Pip-Boy glove.

My contract flies to the ground.

One of the mercs picked it up.

No.

[shawnskeds]

your relationship with shawn based off of your favorite “handwritten” song

non-requested// aight so i did this for illuminate and i loved doing it!!! so here’s one for handwritten. if you wanna read the one for illuminate, it’s riiiight here . plus i miss little bb handwritten shawn.

author’s note// happy new year, hope two thousand eighteen doesn’t eat my ass

WARNING!! I KNOW I DON’T WRITE TRIGGER WARNINGS, BUT SOME OF THE MATERIAL IS TRIGGERING, AS IT DEALS WITH DEPRESSION AND MENTAL ILLNESS AS WELL AS SUICIDE!!!

masterlist

I. Life Of The Party

You and Shawn met at a high school party, one that you both really didn’t want to be at. You were dragged there by your best friend, and the same for Shawn. Since you both sort of gravitated towards the back, you started talking. Though neither of you were comfortable, you found comfort in one another. You started talking, and really never stopped. Your relationship is fairly generic, but you are genuinely one another’s best friend. He’s the first person you tell things to, and visa versa. It’s just super friggin healthy, and you love and support each other. You are just happy, and you are his person and he is yours.

II. Stitches

You didn’t like a consistent relationship, and while Shawn knew that, he didn’t like it. You wanted a fling, nothing serious, and you were kind of well aware that you were hurting Shawn. You just didn’t want to lose him, and frankly, he didn’t want to lose you either. You don’t really even remember how you met one another, probably drunken in a bar, ended in a hookup and Shawn falling in love. You hated to say it, but you were in love too regardless of the fact you pretended as if you didn’t. The fact of the matter is, it’s a non relationship where you both love one another, but you both are too scared of what the other will say to do anything. Ya pussies. 

III. Never Be Alone

You had a history of depression and mental illness, and after a rather unfortunate suicide attempt you spent some time in a mental hospital. Your first day out, you met a guy in a coffee shop and you started talking. For some reason, you spilled everything to him and told him ever intimate detail. And he didn’t run away. From that moment on, Shawn was by your side making sure you were okay, making sure you took your medicine, making sure everything was okay. You were grateful for him and all of his support, and you showed him just as much, if not even more, love back. He was your number one. Your everything. 

IV. Kid in Love

Alright, let’s get real here, you and Shawn started off as a friends with benefits sort of deal when he was sixteen years old and he was stressed out with all of the EP and tour stuff going on. So whenever he was home, you’d hook up or whatever, and this went on for a year or so. Until completely, out of the blue, Shawn said he had feelings for you, and you realized you had the exact same feelings. SO BOOM you’re in love. A lot of the aspects of your relationship are very physical, but you’re also very in touch with your emotions, always talking about your feelings. Fucking power couple, go you guys fuck me up mom and dad tbh. 

V. I Don’t Even Know Your Name

The oh-so-iconic fan meets pop star and they fall in love. Every girls dream? Ammiright? So basically, it was early in Shawn’s career and you had weaseled your way into the front of the pit and you caught his eye. He saw how you simply didn’t care what anyone thought of you. And after he got management to bring you back after the show, you continued to do so. He loved that you genuinely didn’t care that he was famous, and that you didn’t care if the paparazzi would take photos of every intimate moment you spent together in public, because you wanted to have a normal relationship. It was a fairly normal relationship, except Shawn toured and had fans, but you worked around it. Just a nice, normal, teenage relationship. How friggin nice. 

VI. Something Big

This is about to be super heckalecking generic, but like there was some smash ass party right when Shawn was getting famous with a bunch of people at your school, and your friend was invited and your friend brought you! And you were introduced to Shawn and it was like, WOWZA. The relationship like, probably wasn’t the healthiest because you never saw one another, and the fact that it was so incredibly on and off and whenever it was off he would sleep with some celebrity at a party. And you never cared, and he never cared when you slept with someone back at home. Toxic, unhealthy, and not even passionate. This relationship sucks, and no one actually likes Something Big so it kinda doesn’t matter. 

VII. Strings

After a big pre-mtv awards or whatever, you were working as a journalist and met Shawn. You both drank a little too much, and ended up drunkenly hooking up. And my mom says no good relationships start with a hookup, but this one does! It was great because you woke up and felt no regrets, and you were like “damn, this guy” and he was like “damn, this girl” and that’s just how life was. You were a power couple, both thriving in your careers, even helping one another out. You are both successful in your work and in your relationship and it’s overall just a really great relationship of love, passion, and support and if you tell me I’m making this such a great relationship because strings is my favorite song, you would be correct.

VIII. Aftertaste

This relationship has since ended, but while it was going on, it like wasn’t all that great. You overall, took Shawn for granted (like i am every fucking day) and you just thought that he wasn’t good enough for you. You always wanted more from him, and even though he tried you constantly thought what he was doing simply wasn’t good enough for you. So after a year and a half of a relationship, that was set up by friends might I add, you dumped him for some other guy you thought was better, and when you realized you had it pretty great with Shawn, and you wanted him back, he wasn’t dealing with your shit you bitch. 

IX. Air

Shawn was kinda suffocating (okay listen you’re always the bitch in these let Shawn be the bitch) and he always wanted more out of a relationship, when you weren’t even aware of the fact that you were in a committed relationship. You didn’t mind that much, but you had just met at a bar and started casually dating and he wanted so much out of you. He was a good boyfriend, honestly. He treated you well, and you liked him a lot but he was just demanding and clingy and it was sometimes a lot. I don’t know you’ll probably work it out or something.

X. Crazy

Shawn and you always felt as if you were a buffer of some sort. Like you couldn’t really find the ‘one’ so you were just dating one another for the time being. You weren’t in a bad relationship by any means whatsoever. You were pretty sure you loved Shawn and Shawn was pretty sure he loved you and yeah there was that spark, but it always felt a little bit off. It always felt like there was someone out there that may be better for you. Like this relationship, while it was a nice one, probably wasn’t end game. 

XI. A Little Too Much

You met Shawn through a friend, and he was really nice and he ended up really liking you, but for a while you didn’t call him back because you felt like you were too fucked up to ever be in a relationship with such a great guy, but after running into him again, you explained you liked him, but you had horrible anxiety and it stressed you out, and instead of thinking you were a freak like you thought he would, he decided to love and support you. He never asked you to do anything outside of your comfort zone, and making sure you were always comfortable, and whenever you had an anxiety attack he was sure to make you feel better. A good bean, a wonderful cute bean Shawn is. 

XII. This is What It Takes

Shawn took on a heck ton of the responsibility in the relationship, because he felt like he always had to take care of you. You were fresh out of a physically abusive relationship with a not-so-great guy, so Shawn almost felt it his responsibility to make you feel safe and warm, and he did such a good job at it. He was there when you needed him and even there when you didn’t, just in case. He made you smile and laugh and played dumb board games with you whenever you started to get upset. This went on for a while, and whenever you got better, he was still an amazing supportive boyfriend who always made you feel safe. A good guy, 11/10. 

XII. Bring It Back

Your relationship is dying. You started dating in fucking middle school, and you just never stopped. You were so happy for like, three and a half years, and it just started to die. It started to get depressing, honestly, because neither of you really wanted to continue dating one another, but it was almost as if you didn’t want to see the other fall in love with someone else. The relationship was almost territorial more so than passion driven. Yanno it just sucks cause you guys aren’t gonna be dating for much longer in all honesty, enjoy it while it lasts my dude. 

XIV. Imagination

This is genuinely depressing, because you and Shawn aren’t even in a relationship. You were both in the same music theory class in high school, and you were both literally in love with one another from an afar. You thought his voice was beautiful, and he thought your piano skills were phenomenal. You became friends, and you stayed friends even when Shawn became famous. And even when Shawn was famous, he was still in love with you and you felt the same, but you both assumed the other was uninterested. I’m crying thinking about it pls date. 

author’s note// what i find straight wild is my writing gets more depressing as this blog goes on. i was so full of life and love when i started this blog in seventh grade, and now i am dead inside

[leonawriter]

griefandpunishment replied to your post: griefandpunishment replied to your post ...

I could…talk for way too long about XIV. It’s an MMO so it is a bit less accessible than other FFs. But, also gives lots of opportunity for OCs. I can’t imagine Leon not being in KH3. It’d be straight up weird for HB/RG not to be in the game (and therefore no Leon). And I doubt Square will miss an opportunity to include Cloud, lol. I’m looking forward to it…tho I still need to play 2.8/watch Chi back cover. (I was playing KHUX, but my money…it eats it…)

Yeah, MMOs aren’t really my thing so much as easier to follow storyline’d RPGs.

You got a point. I mean, Cloud’s been in pretty much almost all of the KH games, hasn’t he? He’s even in KHUX, too. Only one he’s not in is BBS, and that’s because Zack’s there. Leon was even in Recoded as a cameo appearance that I was never able to unlock. The last thing I needed, and he never came to me, sobs.

I’m actually still playing KHUX! I’ve only put money into it once, which gave me enough of a boost that I haven’t since, and I’ve used the 0AP weeks to get back the EXP and evolve medals I need. I’ve got some damn good medals, too, for a F2P player! The Kairi EX and I. Roxax EX and even the more recent dual-wielding Roxas EX. I just wish I had even one Sephiroth medal to my name, and more of the premium Rikus, haha...

I’ve no idea if the KHUX storyline will end up useful to understand KH3 or any of the later games that come out, but... it’s actually starting, at a snail’s pace, to have original plot that might tie into the main games. Which is a massive part of why I’m still playing. 

Though speaking of, I ditched one mobile game that just seemed to be rigged all the time, I’ve almost stopped playing FEH, and the main reason I’m playing FF Record Keeper is because the characters aren’t random drops and the quests are actually cool ways of experiencing older games either for the first time, or the second time around, or a mix of both if like me you’ve only watched and not played before. I... already collected all of the VII era characters, plus Squall and Rinoa, and a fair few others.

[ciathyzareposts]

The Final Word on Daniel Lawrence’s DND

The title shows that, just as with The Game of Dungeons, “DND” was just a file name, not the game name.

         If you haven’t had a chance to check out the “Data Driven Gamer,” it’s worth a visit. The author, Ahab, is still building his readership base, much like I was in 2011. He’s more expansive in his selection of games than I am, but his particular focus is to analyze the games’ quantitative elements, while still supplying a lot of commentary on the qualitative ones.

Ahab did a great job in the last couple of years analyzing The Dungeon and The Game of Dungeons, prompting me to go back and win those games. But those contributions pale in comparison to what he did last month. For the first time that I’m aware of, he figured out how to get a version of Daniel Lawrence’s DND operating on a VAX emulator. For decades, we’ve had to reconstruct this missing link between the PLATO Game of Dungeons and the commercial Telengard based on player memories, adaptations, and interpretations of source code. Ahab not only showed the game in action, but he won it and supplied a full set of maps (for one of the three dungeons) as part of the process. His material is key to understanding this particular, peculiar line of CRPGs. Among other things, the ability to actually play this game shows that only the file name was DND; the title was–copyrights be damned–Dungeons & Dragons.          

Gameplay in the VMS/VAX DND. My graphics are all messed up because of a line feed issue that I can’t solve. The dungeon walls don’t really look this chaotic.

          Untangling the history of this particular lineage has been difficult, largely because of horrendous misinformation, much of it perpetrated (or at least not corrected) by Lawrence himself, who died in 2010 at the age of 52. (Among other things, he explicitly designated this page, which is so hopelessly confused I don’t know where to begin, as the “official DND site.” The authors do deserve credit for aggregating and preserving important files.) To read some sites, Lawrence is the father of the entire CRPG line, having written the first DND as early as 1972–two years before tabletop Dungeons & Dragons! His game was so popular, some articles have alleged, that students at the University of Indiana decided to adapt it as The Game of Dungeons. (Of course, it was the other way around.) Even writers who haven’t so thoroughly confused the timeline have accepted Lawrence’s assertions that he wrote “his” DND entirely on his own, with no reference to any other game, despite that it clearly borrows elements from the PLATO Game of Dungeons and Lawrence went to a university (Purdue) connected to PLATO. In a 2007 interview with Matt Barton, he suggests that his “play testers” might have played The Game of Dungeons and brought ideas to him. To me, such a scenario doesn’t begin to explain the similarities between the games.           

Daniel Lawrence in an undated photograph. Credit unknown.

        The best truth that I can determine with the available evidence is that Lawrence wrote his first version of DND in 1976 or 1977, clearly after being exposed to The Game of Dungeons on PLATO. I’m inclined to think that 1977 is the more likely date, since DND is closer in similarity to Version 6 of The Game of Dungeons, which wasn’t released until 1977. Then again, elements of The Game Version 8 (1978) also seem to show up in Lawrence’s work, so it’s possible he went back to the well several times during the development of his adaptation. The existence of several mainframe versions would support this thesis.

As we’ll see, Lawrence made plenty of additions, and to recognize that he plagiarized from The Game is not to deny his own skill and innovations. His primary contribution was releasing the game to the wider world, first by writing a version for Purdue’s DEC RSTS/E system. (In Lawrence’s own words, the game was “the cause of more than one student dropping out” and “made me very unpopular with the computing staff at Purdue.”) Engineers from DEC maintaining Purdue’s system became familiar with the game and liked it so much that in 1979, they asked Lawrence to come to their Massachusetts headquarters and write a port for DEC’s PDP-10 mainframe running the TOPS-20 operating system. (There are hints within DEC documents that Lawrence may have been paid for this, and that DEC’s intention was to offer the game with its installations. The specific agreement between Lawrence and DEC has not come to light.) This version was subsequently disseminated in many locations where DECs were installed. The VMS/VAX version that Ahab got running seems to have been ported from this mainframe version.

By then, Lawrence had already been porting the game to the micro-computer. In 1978, he wrote a version for the Commodore PET that he titled Telengard, which had been the name of one of the explorable dungeons in DND. Representatives from Avalon Hill ran into Lawrence demoing the game at a convention in 1980 or 1981 and offered him a publishing deal, which ultimately saw PET, Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80, Atari 800, and MS-DOS releases starting in 1981 or 1982.           

The title screen from the Commodore PET version of Telengard. The 1981 date seems unlikely as the actual release year.

              (None of the histories of Lawrence or Telengard mention the specific convention at which this meeting occurred, but I found a likely session in the GenCon XIV program from August 1981. Unless Lawrence ran the same competition multiple years [I can’t find the previous year’s catalog], it seems unlikely that Telengard had a pre-1982 release date despite the copyright date on some versions of the game.)           

In 1981, Lawrence ran a “contest” in which players competed for high scores or other status in some version of DND. Someone from Avalon Hill attended the session, and the result was the commercial Telengard.

             From then on, Lawrence and Avalon Hill waged war on the ubiquitously-released free versions of the game, ordering their removal from every system on which they appeared. For its part, DEC acceded to legal threats from Avalon Hill, resulting in the modern difficulty reconstructing what those early versions looked like. You can read a long, fun e-mail chain here in which DEC employees try to argue law with their own legal department. Hilariously, various employees request assistance in finding the Orb throughout the thread while their exasperated bosses remind them that the game isn’t supposed to exist on any DEC machine anymore.             

A DEC executive orders the deletion of DND from DEC machines.

             If Lawrence was guilty of some disingenuous behavior in trying to quash free versions of a game he partly plagiarized, it came back to bite him in repeated plagiarisms of his versions. We’ve seen plenty of them on this blog, including the so-called “Heathkit DND” (in actuality, also titled Dungeons and Dragons) of 1981, R.O. Software’s DND (1984), and Thomas Hanlin’s Caverns of Zoarre (1984). There are other BBS and shareware versions of the game that we haven’t tried.               

A DND “family tree.”

             That’s the history. But what is Dungeons & Dragons? It’s a text-based game with ASCII graphics in which a single character navigates one of three 20-level dungeons in a quest to retrieve a magic orb from a dragon. The layout of the dungeon and the locations of many of the special encounters are fixed, but the locations of combats and miscellaneous treasure finds are so random that you could encounter a never-ending stream of them from the same dungeon square. Combats are with a small menagerie of enemies, each with different strengths and vulnerabilities to the game’s various spells. The character gains experience through both combat and treasure-finding, with miscellaneous encounters increasing and decreasing his attributes and providing him with magical gear. When he feels strong enough, he takes on the final dungeon level, recovers the orb, and–if he makes it back alive–gets his name on a leaderboard of “orb finders.”

As I mentioned, there are too many elements copied directly from The Game of Dungeons for it to be remotely possible that Lawrence never saw it. These include:

The basic approach to game mechanics and goals, including the existence of permadeath.

A character creation process that includes a “secret name” for each character, serving as a kind of password

          The need for a “secret name” is drawn from The Game of Dungeons, but the full set of attributes, the choice of character classes, and the choice of dungeons is new to DND.

         The number of dungeon levels.

A main quest to recover an orb.

Carrying treasure out of the dungeon converts it to experience points.

           My character levels up from a treasure haul.

         A list of successful characters called “finders.”

The existence of a transportation device, called “Excelsior,” that moves you among the levels.

Basic combat options of (F)ight, (C)ast, and (E)vade.

A small number of monsters who have numeric levels assigned.

Many of the magic items are identical. Items can be trapped (although Lawrence’s traps are more creative).

Treasure is found in both chests and random piles. Chests contain vastly more gold than the random piles.

Magic books that can raise or lower your attributes.

        DND’s handling of chests and books is the same as The Game of Dungeons.

       Pits that you can fall down, dumping you on lower levels.

           Luckily, I spotted this one.

         It’s also possible that Lawrence took a few elements from the earlier The Dungeon, including the organization of spells into a number of “slots” per level as well as some of the treasures you can find in the dungeon and their relative conversion to gold.

But Lawrence also added some new things to the Game of Dungeons template, some making it better, some making it poorer. These include:

DND has no graphics. Walls and corridors are ASCII characters and the main characters is represented as an X. The Game of Dungeons had graphics for geography, the PC, monsters, equipment, gold, and so forth.

Instead of just “gold,” the player finds a variety of different treasure types that are converted to gold.

DND dungeon levels are much larger.

The Excelsior transporter exists on every level in DND, not just the top one.

A full set of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons attributes. The Game of Dungeons just had strength, intelligence, and dexterity. DND adds constitution and charisma.

           A DND “character sheet.”

          While the character in Game was a multi-classed fighter/magic-user/cleric, DND has the player specify a choice of these classes. As such, combat is rebalanced so that you don’t need to cast particular spells to ensure victory, and a pure fighter has a shot at winning. Spells, which could reliably one-shot certain enemies in The Game, are significantly reduced in power. They’re also more in line with tabletop Dungeons and Dragons and, it must be said, a lot less silly than The Game.

There’s no distinction between experience and gold in DND, as there was in Game through Version 5. The Game also changed to a single experience pool starting in Version 6, so Lawrence may have been influenced by the later one.

DND offers three dungeons to explore–Telengard, Svhenk’s Lair, and Lamorte–each of which might contain the orb.

Game resolved combats all at once. DND shows round-for-round results.

             DND’s approach is generally better, but sometimes you wish it would just hurry up and get it done.

           DND completely randomizes the appearance of treasure. The Game “seeded” each level with gold and chests whenever you entered, and you could clear the level, but in DND, treasure has a chance of showing up in every square as you move to it, including those you’ve already explored.

DND adds more special encounters at fixed locations, including thrones, altars, fountains, dragons’ lairs, and doors with combination codes.

          Special encounters with altars are a new element in DND.

        Lawrence replaced the awkward “teleporters” with stairs that remain in a fixed location.

DND includes a greater variety of equipment, including magic weapons other than swords. The pluses go much higher, too. Where The Game capped at +3, DND allows higher than +20.

DND adds cute atmospheric messages as you explore. Examples: “A mutilated body lies on the floor nearby”; “‘Turn back!!!’ a voice screams”; “The room vibrates as if an army is passing by.” There’s even a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure and its hollow voice that says “PLUGH.”

Finally, it’s worth noting some of the changes between DND and Telengard:

Telengard has no main quest. The only objective is to get stronger and richer. For years, I thought this was a defining feature of the sub-genre, but it turns out that it’s actually quite rare. Most variants have some kind of main quest.

Telengard‘s has only one dungeon, randomly drawn every time you start a new game.

The appearance of thrones, fountains, altars, and other special features are completely randomized, just like monsters and miscellaneous treasure. A player can encounter everything that Telengard has to offer by passing time in a single square.

Telengard has graphics.

Telengard has an expanded selection of items, including potions and scrolls.

         Telengard is a nicer-looking game, but the greater randomization creates a chaotic experience.

           Only the last item is a clear “improvement.” Telengard is arguably a dumbing-down of gameplay in DND. The lack of any main quest is particularly notable, and one wonders why Lawrence or Avalon Hill made the decision to exclude one. Perhaps they thought the game had greater replayability if the only goal was to create a stronger character.

For all the ink writers like me have spent on Lawrence and his game, it arguably had the least impact of the major lineages that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During its day, DND offered perhaps the best simulation of the mechanics of tabletop role-playing on a computer, but its arrival on the micro-computer scene was far too late to have any impact. By the time that Telengard was released, it had already been outclassed by Ultima and games in the Moria/Oubliette/Wizardry line. The direct influence of DND can only really be felt in its few clones, for which there was so small a market that they had to be released as shareware.

              Gameplay from the Heathkit Dungeons and Dragons (1981).

Gameplay in R.O. Software’s DND (1984)

             Gameplay in Caverns of Zoarre (1984)

             There is one small exception, and to analyze it we must first note that DND did a reasonably good job anticipating the roguelike sub-genre. In fact, it’s hard not to call it a pre-Rogue “roguelike,” what with its random encounters, permadeath, and MacGuffin on the 20th floor. And yet it’s hard to detect any direct influence on Rogue. (To some extent, Rogue feels like a game created by someone who heard about DND but never played it.) To my knowledge, the developers of Rogue have never acknowledged any direct influence except Star Trek (1971), Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), and a general desire to emulate table-top role-playing.

However, I do think that someone on the NetHack development team was exposed to DND, or at least Telengard. I base this on the variety of special encounters that were introduced to the game at some point between Hack and NetHack 2.3e, including thrones that do different things when you sit on them and offer the ability to pry gems out of them; fountains that have a variety of effects; and altars that ask for money. Granted, thrones, fountains, and altars are fantasy staples that may have been introduced independently, but the specific way that you use them is so similar to DND that I think there must be a connection. It’s a minor legacy, but still worth acknowledging.

           Sitting on thrones in NetHack has many of the same consequences as in DND.

        Ahab was kind enough to send me the instructions I needed to emulate DND myself. I tried for a while, but I couldn’t solve an issue (involving line feeds) that created chaos out of the dungeon maps. (The solution he offers on his blog didn’t work for me despite us both having the same version of Windows.) Such a win would have been superfluous coming right on the heels of his own victory anyway. I may return to it at some point in the future, just for the statistic, but not soon.

This entry will serve as my final word on this line of games, which we’ve visited in bits and pieces since the first year of my blog. If any new information comes to light, I’ll include edits in this entry rather than writing anew. In the meantime, there are dozens of web pages and Wiki articles that I don’t imagine will be similarly corrected. Daniel Lawrence deserves credit for what he accomplished, but he is not the grandfather or even father of CRPGs.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-final-word-on-daniel-lawrences-dnd/

[zato-the-fiend]

Yeah, didn't Injustice 2 announce 9 dlc characters before the game is released? Weird people didn't complain about that. Also, i also remember being mad that MVC3 didn't have dlc characters beside Jill and Shuma-Gorath.

While a lot of people already think i’m defending Capcom jumping like a fanboy and defending my “Lords”, that’s not it, I haven’t been in favor of a lot of Capcom’s business practices since SF4′s very conception and i damn well agree that they are making stupid ass decisions to this day, it’s fine that people criticize capcom for these practices, but what i find plain annoying is how everyone is complaining about these same practices because its Capcom, but literally praise every other developer that does the exact same thing 

I’ve been getting responses of people saying basically “How dare you compare Capcom to Arc System Works” as if they were a perfect company… they don’t remember that they are the ones that have been releasing an exclusively retail definitive version of three of their fighting games (BB: Continuum Shift, Chrono Phantasma and Guilty Gear Xrd), they don’t remember they are the ones charging you 8 Dollars for a single DLC character, they don’t remember they are the ones that are about to release a 20 dollar expansion, from which all we know right now are 2 New Characters, a veteran and a new one (which by their logic towards SF5′s second season isn’t new because he’s been appearing in Xrd’s stories since SIGN), balance changes, and proper story modes for Revelator’s characters, who should’ve had it since the very beginning but okay…you can have the most complete fighting game on the market right now, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t guilty for the same things everyone is giving Capcom so much hate for, MvCI looks rough yes, but KOF XIV looked even worse when it was announced, and the backlash SNK received was legendary. today? is regarded as one of the best titles in the series, They said KI wasn’t gonna hold up with it’s business practice, it did, Hell even Netherrealm didn’t get even a sixteenth of the flack Capcom is getting when they did the whole Easy Fatality bullshit in MKX, Everyone is already saying everything Capcom pulls out is gonna suck right away, i rather stay in the gray area here, the game looks great to me, but i’m not going to say is going to be a good game right away, SF4 looked great and it was one of my biggest disappointments yet…

My concern is how impossible it is for Capcom to get people’s approval because of things every other developer is guilty for, yes they rush their games, yes their lack of communication with its fans is shameful, yes they haven’t proven to hold up as kings of the fighting genre as they once were years ago, and they will most probably keep making bad decisions in the future… but right now, i just wish to see less negativity towards that one company, because of petty reasons everyone else is doing

Trying to please the FGC is proving more difficult and frustrating than teaching a tiger how to sew