MAKE VISUALS GREAT AGAIN AND RADIANCE SERIES

You canвЂ™t have every party saving the world when said world needs to be shared by hundreds of adventure modules, source books, computer games, and novels. In addition to the decidedly modest heights to which characters are allowed to rise in Pool of Radiance specifically, the need to fit the Gold Box games in general into TSRвЂ™s existing milieus tended to rein in such excesses. There are, thank God, no вЂњChosen OnesвЂќ or existential universal threats in Pool of Radiance, a welcome distinction that largely holds true throughout the Gold Box line. In these, as in Pool of Radiance, the stakes for the campaign world are relatively low but the stakes for the playersвЂ™ party couldnвЂ™t be higher. Like so much about Pool of Radiance, the scenario harks back to the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons experience, to iconic low-level adventures like Gary GygaxвЂ™s own The Keep on the Borderlands and the classic British module The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Instead of saving the world, youвЂ™re вЂњonlyвЂќ out to save a little town called Phlan thatвЂ™s been largely overrun with monsters in recent years. ItвЂ™s surprisingly modest in scale and scope, at least within the over-the-top context of ludic fantasy in general. The story is appropriate to the charactersвЂ™ somewhat limited powers. Still, thereвЂ™s a big difference between level 1 and level 6, and the thrill of seeing your characters advance and grow in power, so much at the heart of an RPGвЂ™s appeal, is the greatest at the lower levels.

MAKE VISUALS GREAT AGAIN AND RADIANCE SERIES

This article describes what we found therein.Д«eing the first game in a series that would spawn three direct sequels, Pool of Radiance limits your characters to somewhere between level 6 and 9, depending on class this is strictly a low- to mid-level adventure, reserving the real power-gaming for its sequels.

My wife Dorte and I recently played through Pool of Radiance as the first stage in a grander project of trying to take the same party of characters through the entire four-game series that it begins. As Wizardry had been replaced by The BardвЂ™s Tale not so long ago, so was The BardвЂ™s Tale now replaced by the Gold Box. The latter was more than enough to move Pool of Radiance and the Gold Box line it spawned into place as the 1B to the Ultima seriesвЂ™s perennial 1A, replacing the BardвЂ™s Tale games, whose own shooting star was now in the descendant.

Coming as it did near the end of the line for an 8-bit CRPG tradition that began in earnest with the original Ultima and Wizardry games back in 1981, itвЂ™s easy to see it as the culmination of that tradition, blending the ideas and approaches of its predecessors with its own brand new commercial trump card, the Dungeons & Dragons license. Pool of Radiance is one of the most important CRPGs of all time in terms of both design and the genreвЂ™s commercial history.

Make visuals great again and radiance