Any females using the forum???

[Daniel (Sweden)]

Hello FOLKS!

There is one stupid question that has been in my mind for awhile, and I feel that I must ask it. There are several names on the forum that could be female names, and I must admit that Im really curious about this: is there any women visiting this forum????
It would be fun to know if even women likes Dungeon Master or if its just a "boy-thing" (I have always thought DM games was, but I hope Im wrong). I know this question is very silly, but it has really made me curious.

Cheers folks!

/Daniel (Sweden)

[Lunever]

lol Although I occasionally do things like going unrecognized to events like "lesbian single night" in certain clubs I'm quite male.
I don't think that there are only men playing DM around, but why would you want to know? And how could you know that the gender some web identity claims to have is for real?
From my personal xp I'd say about 15 % of paper and pen players are female, as are about 20 % of computer RPG users and about 30 % of LARPlayers. But that's based only on personal perspective, I don't have any official numbers. But a friend of mine made a very extensive poll about that issue for his psychology diploma. When I meet him next, I will ask him for more reliable numbers.

[Daniel (Sweden)]

Much applies Lunever!

Well...I was just curious. I know there are millions of fake names (my is Daniel though, and I am from Sweden), but it was intressting to try to find out if there is some females playing DM (I know of two though). Im looking forward to your report about your friends efforts! Cheers!

Yours Sincerely!

/Daniel (Sweden)

[Christopher]

Though she doesn't visit this site, my mom plays Dungeon Master 1 and 2.

[Daniel (Sweden)]

Hello Christopher!

Well, I must say that your mom has an excellent taste in games. Say hi from me! ; )

Yours Sincerely

/Daniel (Sweden)

[Wil]

Tiggy is definitely a female, but I'm not sure she uses the forum.

[Randolf Boots Jr]

Well im not. ;)

[Ian Clark]

Well I am male, and my name is Ian but the girl I live with likes DM.

[Simon]

no posters yet then!

[Pauline]

Hello Daniel...yes I'm a fully breast endowed 'person' of the female gender. But although currently an IT student, I'm very new to computer gaming and I haven't got a clue what this Dungeon Master game is all about. I am just now in the process of surfing around the site...

[Daniel (Sweden)]

Hello Pauline!

Its nice to see you at the forum! Dungeon Master is an old roleplaying adventure game, one of the first real 3D games. Its possible to download it from the site, its worth testing, it has a great gameplay feeling. Try the versions made by Paul Stevens and George Gilbert, they work in windows environment. I hope you will enjoy it! Welcome to the forum and the world of Dungeon Master!

Yours Sincerely!

/Daniel (Sweden)

[beowuuf]

I'd suggest the two clones RTC (a faithful recreation of DM) and DMJava (a 'new look' clone) in conjunction with what is, while still a classic, an old game : )

[Pauline]

Hi again Daniel and hello Beowulf (Did I spell that correctly?),

I'm going to try and download Dungeon Master from the site and hope it's compatible with Windows XP Home Edition. I'm totally new to games on computers...but used to enjoy a lot of board games when younger. Does anyone remember Dungeons & Dragons? I think this was produced in other formats including as a computer game. I thought at first this was related in some way to Dungeon Master, but I don't think it is from what you've said Daniel.

Nice to meet you guys on here....Cheerio Pauline

[Pauline]

oops...sorry beowuff I called you Beowulf didn't I....must get some glasses!

[beowuuf]

np, its a play on beowulf and wuuf, and came about way before i found the DM community, people can spell it how they like : )

[PicturesInTheDark]

Dungeons & Dragons was the original that inspired many creations - also goes for computers. DM was the first 3D-view roleplaying game available and although the similarities to D&D are small, the background is there.

Regards, PitD

[Simon]

I disagree, I don't think D&D had much influence on dungeon master. Could be wrong though, but the two systems seem radically different.

[Sphenx]

I'm quite sure that if both Tolkien and Gygax had not existed, there would not exist DM as well.

[Lunever]

I absolutely agree with Sphenx.

[Wil]

Those FTL geniuses didn't need Tolkien or Gygax (which I don't know, shame!), they would have found something else. Maybe Howard (Conan) was an inspiration too? Apparently, their culture was vast.
The game is very anti ADD in many aspects (stats improvements, magic system...) but so were a lot of CRPG.
Daniel, now you know, the only girl answering doesn't even know the game!

[Sral]

Gygax is the creator of D&D and AD&D, shame on you !

And without Tolkien, there would have been also no Conan !

[Lunever]

Wil, you don't seem to be able to see DM as a part of a continous developement. Without ancient myth there wouldn't have been the Lord of the Rings, and without the Lord of the Rings there woudln't have been the entire genre of modern fantasy, and without that genre there wouldn't have been the oldest and most basic paper and pen role playing game, which is Gary Gygax' Dungeons & Dragons, and without the various evolving paper and pen roleplaying games there wouldn't have been computer role playing games, and without computer role playing games there wouldn't have been Dungeon Master.
FTL's work is surely brilliant, and indded, if they had not access to the information above they might have created something different but still brilliant, yet Dungeon Master is not the result of their genius alone, but a combination of their genius and an existing background: Fantasy genre and roleplaying games. For the details of the game rules my be different, but the basic concept of resolving events by a combination of fixed numbers (stats) and random elements (dice) underlying Dungeon Master and almost every other RPG was outlaid by D&D, and certain background elements of DM's story like Wizards and Demons or Elves like Linflas and Dwarves like Stamm are not of any random fantasy story, they are from a very specific Tolkien-inspired form of fantasy, and would not fit into other categories of fantasy like "The Dark Crystal" or "The Neverending Story (the book, NOT the movie)".
So the game is far from anti-AD&D, on the contrary, it is based upon the basic concept of A/D&D and improved or evolved many of it's compomonents to suit FTL's specific needs.

[Wil]

Sral, to my knowledge, the Conan stories by Robert Howard were published in the 1930's, Lord of the Rings by Tolkien in the 1950's, Howard knew nothing of Tolkien, and his world was full of wizards, monsters, treasures, dungeons... a world of Sword & Fantasy, a genre that existed in pulps before Tolkien.
About Gygax: Yes, shame on me, I'm an ignorant! I thought he was another novellist. Well, maybe they needed Gygax, now that I know who (or what?) he is.

Lunever, I don't want to minimize Tolkien, I don't know how many times I've read LOTR (in french & english). It's clear the races we find in all RPGs, CRPGs are derived from Tolkien. In DM though, those races don't seem to play a great role, Linflas is just a reference, like Halk and Sonja.
(Stamm is a dwarf, why, you have a quick eye, I never noticed, after playing XX games!) The monsters don't seem to come from the Tolkien world (certainly not the screamers), I think the FTL guys were very imaginative and receptive.
You're certainly right, there was a development, and if (A)DD was the first RPG, we may say all the others come from it. I don't know enough about this. I was pointing to the fact that a lot of features in DM were not ADD, compared to Baldur's Gate for instance, not that it wasn't the same basic principle.

I'm a little surprised, I thought that ADD fans didn't like so much games that don't abide by ADD rules.
But aren't we off-topic? This kind of blah will drive females out of the forum "like the Sun drives orcs out of the Rohirrim plains".

[Lunever]

Hmm, that sounds interesting, when I have som time for it I shall invstigate the Conan stories.
I can't say A/D&D fans don't like other RPG's. I have many friends who are into RPG, and most of them play A/D&D as well as lots of other games, paper & pen as well as computer, and many are into LARP also.

[PaulH]

We had wizards, knights, magic, mystical beasts, funny men in green costumes shooting arrows and warriors long before any of the above authors or creators came into existance. They merely developed, refined and added to the concept which is what DM is.

Hey Wil, this isn't a 'lonely hearts' column! ;-)

[Simon]

I disagree with the whole 'without tolkein there would be nothing' concept.

That's similar to saying "If <name> didn't invent the wheel, then there wouldn't be any cars today"

If <name> didn't invent it then someone else would. Who's to say D&D isn't based on whatever tolkein was based on? Or whatever the material tolkein based him work on was based on?

There are a lot of differences between D&D and tolkein, the elves and dwarves and characters are all different - it would suggest that d&d was in fact created from history books than something that existed already...

Dungeon Master could just have been created by taking some monsters from history and putting them into the game. There's no concept of THAC0 or Armor Class in Dungeon Master, there's no Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence etc, it's created it's own stats and methods for using them.

In my eyes Dungeon Master is nothing like any other games that are around. Remember it was the first graphical game of this nature - eye of the beholder came after and was the same but used D&D rules.

[Sral]

Wil, sorry i didn't know about conan that much. ( So shame on both of us ).

[Sofie]

Hi Daniel!
I quite recently found this website.
I am not only female, I am also Swedish! I used to play DM on my Atari many years ago and also DM2 on an old PC. I have really missed playing it and I have to get this working on my new PC with Windows XP. I am far from a computer expert but I hope to get it working.... soon!!
//Sofie

[Lunever]

Hi Sofie! Welcome to the forum!

Ok then, either try the ported Atari version for Windows CSBWin available at this site, or the DM/CSB-Clone "Return to Chaos" (RTC) available at www.ragingmole.com

[Sofie]

Hi!
Thanks, I did that and got it working! It feels nice to be play Dm again, but I would like to play DM2 and it seems to be a bit more tricky (I have the game on CD. But I will give it a try when I come back from holidays.
//Sofie