Daggerfall Workshop Forums

I've been trying to recall the name of an early RPG, probably from the late 1980s. I've looked at abandonware type sites in the past, but couldn't pin it down.

The one peculiarity I remember is that you could choose a class for your main character from what at the time was an unusually large and off-the-wall set, including oddities like diplomat or scholar (I think). You could then also recruit followers at the local inn or something like that, as per 1980s RPG custom. This was not an open world game in anything like the modern sense, but the character classes weren't just minor variations, they really impacted on how you played the game.

I think there were 2 or 3 games in the series, called something like 1, 2, and 3 or maybe I, II and III. It was moderately popular at the time, but I don't think it was one of the classics.

I wanted to at least read up about it, to assess how meaningful those classes really were, so can anyone please id the game from my not very helpful description?

Well, it does remind me of Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nicodemus.

Thanks. I did own that, in fact. It was the game where characters could get broken or even dismembered arms and legs, rather than just losing HPs. The first party I ventured outside town with soon resembled a collection of Black Knights from Monty Python, as I didn't have the right healing spells. This gave me a twinge of nostalgia: http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/issues/cgw_39.pdf (see page 12).

But I don't think that was the series I had in mind. Looking through those old magazine PDFs, it might be Magic Candle, which does have some weird skills (carpentry and tailoring for example). What did a carpenter do? Build a shelter for your party when camping out in the wilderness, obviously. I have found that I still have MC II and III for PC; I don't know if they would load any more.

Was it 3D? Top down? Isometric?

A great resource for these sorts of questions is this subreddit

MrDowntempo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:06 pm Was it 3D? Top down? Isometric?

A great resource for these sorts of questions is this subreddit

Sorry, I bought a lot of games back then and I don't have a clear mental image of the game graphics. I would say you were pushing a party icon around a map grid for the outdoor world and maybe first person inside dungeons.

Thanks for the link, anyway. I'll take a look there.

Was it Darklands?

Hi, thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think it was Darklands, either. In fact, I've still got an original copy of that installed on an XP PC (which has the all-important floppy drive) with DOSBox, of course. A very interesting and different early kind of open world RPG.

Was it Ishar 1-3? These are early 90s game, but design is still rooted in the 80s.

Have some fond memories of these games anyway, before Underworld and Elder Scrolls.