Nice to know I'm not alone.

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:18 pm

Born in london I got into sci/fi and Fantasy at an early age. I fell in love with with the whole genre when I saw the first star trek series in the late 70's. Of course when star wars came out I was hooked. Sci/fi was the be all and end all of all the films I watched. I loved the escape of the dull norm that was life. But sci/fi changed v.quickly to the whole new realm of FANTASY when I watched for the first time the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons. Every sat morning my mother couldn't move me from the tv till D&D had ended. Every episode was fantastic. And how PEED OFF was I when the show ended without showing how the little gits got home. Although I was able to read I just couldn't sit down and read a book. But as time went on I found a great series of books by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone. My favourite of these was the FOREST OF DOOM. If your not familiar with these books it was a choose your own fate type, read a paragraph then choose to go east or west and dependent on your choice you turn to another page. It wasn't till secondary school that my mates and I got into Fantasy role play games. First D&D then on to AD&D. I didn't know you could get a 20 sided die. At the age of 12 or 13 I entered a whole new realm when a bunch of us went into the dark Labyrinth at Chislehurst Caves to act out the fantasy world in real life role play. Huge BASTARD SWORDS, Costums, Spells, And some of the worst acting you could possibly imagine. But God I enjoyed the laugh. Round about this time that I got the NEW Atari 520stfm and spent many many MANY endless hours playing a little game called DUNGEON MASTER. solving simple puzzles and slaying many DEMONS. But most of my time was spent POWER BUILDING my champions. I'd selected Daroou, Halk, Stamm and my FAV Hissssa. For some reason without saying anything, my friends and I competed against each other to have the most powerful champions. But I kept saying I'm only building them up to take e'm into Chaos Strikes Back. but really I just wanted the most powerful bastards in history. But we were all the same weather it be with DM or AD&D or in the Caves we wanted to be the most powerful character. It was also around this "coming of age" period that I discoverd the wonders of music. This had become my time of discovery. I was enjoying the fantasy of DM while listening to the fantastic sound of IRON MAIDEN Peice Of Mind. My real first peice of music i'd bought without trying to blend in with the trendy people (so called cool kids) The music was dark and put fantastic pictures in my head. So combine Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, Alice Cooper, etc with alcohol, SMOKE, AD&D and a bunch of guys to young to go to the pub and probably to old to be throwing dice on a table trying to work out our THAC0, and you've got a pretty sad bunch of gits. Now some years later I'm missin those early days of discovery. Its just bloody nice to see that a game which means a whole bunch to me, and introduced me to a whole new way of dreaming still has, what can only be discribed as a fanatical cult fan base. This is my thank you to Dungeon Master and this forum for keeping the fantasic dreams of Fantasy alive in our minds.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:55 am

hear hear! I wanted to be the one who discovered all the spells and had them all memorised from my head before my friends had. Now I can remember a number of them still but not all of them I'm afraid. I mostly just keep in touch with folks here, help where I can.. enjoy the new creations and hear the stories.

We are in an age when nerds rule the earth, it's desireable to be one to a certain degree. Computer games and internet are more popular that playing sports and hanging at the gym. That's not to say we are all disgusting fat slobs.. but it means that we are not disparraged for liking D&D games or computers.

woot

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:22 am

I've not looked through the site fully. looks like i got about 5yrs worth of posts to thumb through. love the forum. be good to see what others have to say about the whole fantasy/ sci/fi genre. books, movies, games, and music.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:51 am

Another hello from me, and welcome to the forums!

Opa-Loka wrote:But as time went on I found a great series of books by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone. My favourite of these was the FOREST OF DOOM.

FoD was the first one I bought and it's still my favourite becauase of that. I loved Ian McCaig's drawings , they really evoked the mood of the adventure, even in balck and white. As you like FoD so much, you'll be pleased to learn about this:

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=25912

I love woods and forests!

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:18 am

I'm sitting down chilling out watching fight club laughing my head off. I'm stunned, your taking the time to create a DM version on FoD. God Bless you. I really am starting to feel less of a lost soul. what got me was the pic of the STONEBRIDGE sign. I've not read the book for prob 17/18 odd years. But that pic brought back the memories. I did buy the box sets of the books for my nephew bout 2 years ago. Just wanted him to get off the bloody playstation and find that reading can be just as fun. What plans do you have for expanding the forest? without adding extra characters or locations such as a hidden castles, caves or tree village I cant see the game being big enough if just incorperating the ideas of the book. I seem to remember a barbarian being staked out going mad in the sun. Was that FoD?

Simon · Post by **Simon** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:41 am

Island of the Lizard King was the first one I got. I now own a considerable portion of all things Jackson&Livingstone. Tons of books from all their different series. Getting a copy of TITAN was the hardest.

Everway was the first pen and paper game I played.

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:55 am

TITAN now that was full of top quality art. I borrowed it from a mate at school. wanted to nick it off of him but WAY before my name is Earl was on Karma told me to return it. Even now I can remember the pic of the city with the sewage ridden river flowing through it. god I loved that pic. It truly inspired all the images I ceated in my mind when playing AD&D. Don't know if its legal for you to post that pic but could I be as so bold as to ask you to post a copy of that scene.

Post by **linflas** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:10 am

Hi Opa and welcome here !

Opa-Loka wrote:What plans do you have for expanding the forest? without adding extra characters or locations such as a hidden castles, caves or tree village I cant see the game being big enough if just incorperating the ideas of the book

I try to follow the book as much as possible first, with DM mechanics, but you're right about the size of the game : the forest itself is only one big DM level and its size can be compared to DM2 thicket level. But there are a few houses, caves and crypts in the book as well

Secondly, there have never been any french translation of Titan and other rare stuff from Jackson and Livingstone. I pick up information from the gamebooks related to Allansia i own : Forest of Doom, Temple of Terror, Island of the Lizard King, City of Thieves, Crypt of the Sorcerer, Deathtrap Dungeon, Trial of Champions, ... and i'll try to add a few extensions to the game. For example, i discovered on a fan's website that Yaztromo's crow is named Vermithrax. That's not very important but i like details

Anyway all of this must be penciled and put into bitmaps for the game, and *that* is a huge work...
If you're good at Photoshop...

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:03 pm

Think this was the cover for the Titan book.

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o53/ ... /TITAN.jpg

Not sure if this is how I'm supposed to post a pic. If I'm wrong I apologise. and I'm puttin out an SOS for someone to direct me.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:51 pm

That image tag should have worked, but doesn't - and actually, to save bandwidth if it's a large pic if you just put the link without anything around it people can click on it at their leasure instead ; )

Edit: Used spooky mod powers to correct the link

Lol, just to push one of my new (and old) loves, if you liked the FF gamebooks, you may also have heard of, or be interested, in the Lone Wolf series of Gamebooks - http://www.projectaon.org

They are bloody good, and are actually making a comeback so if you get into them then there is a whole slew of stuff planned to relaunch it next year

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:35 am

that dragon picture I had as a poster on my wall a long time.. never knew what it was from.. now I do..

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 2:19 am

Yeah, the Titan cover is a famous picture by Chris Achilleos:

http://www.chrisachilleos.co.uk/main/bo ... books.html

I love this guy's work!

Opa-Loka · Post by **Opa-Loka** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:04 am

Gambit37 if you go up a few posts I asked if anyone had the sewer ridden city pic from that book. Dont suppose I could test my luck and ask if you have it?

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:32 am

Nope, sorry, I don't have any of that stuff anymore.