Barbarian Prince

[Deleted]

in my past attempts to find some sort of solo rpg, i came across Barbarian Prince (dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_barbarianprince.html). the encounter mechanics are very different but the plot/story layout is very similar to a LAW adventure (numbered, scrambled entries of narrative and options). the Barbarian Prince content would make an excellent 'over-world' map/campaign setting for anyone interested. LAW adventure modules ('dungeons') could be inserted into different locations on the Barbarian Prince map.

[mister frau blucher]

Good call, ewookie. This was one of my favorite solos from back in the day.

One of our posters here, Colin (aka Klingor) talked about something almost identical to this. If you go down to the TFT section near the bottom of these boards, and look at the "Grailquest" thread, you may enjoy what you read!

Bret

[Deleted]

cool, thanks! grailquest sounds very interesting!

[klingor]

Ewookie,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
I've just downloaded Barbarian Prince from the website you gave in your first post on this thread. I tried to buy an original on E-bay to get the booklets but was outbid. What I have in the downloads is what I wanted.
Mega-karma to you for that!
Cheers
Colin

[Deleted]

oh man! you are very welcome! i'm glad you were outbid i can't imagine it was going to be cheap for an original printed version!

...unless having an original printed version was important to you. in that case, i'm sorry you were outbid. you could try using a 'snipe' program in that case. google 'jbidwatcher' if interested.

[klingor]

Ewookie, hi.
The reason I wanted to get the Barbarian Prince originals again was simply that I couldn't find any other way of getting hold of the booklets they contained.
Since I found the DCG website and realised that I wasn't the only one who still remembered and loved the system, I'd been trying to find the Barbarian Prince booklets to see if I could recreate, for DCG players, the same sort of system that I once did for TFT/ITL when trying to expand GrailQuest (my favourite of all of the Microquests)

Now that you've given me access to what I was looking for, I hope that, in time, I'll be able to set up a DCG-compatible basic structure that can be used in a setting eg Stormspeake in the RCG, so that people like me, who were "lost souls crying in the wilderness" ie not members of a regular group with a gamesmater, can still generate challenging encounters; even though they are generic each one will be different.
It is an ambitious idea, but "A man's reach should always exceed his grasp."
Cheers
Colin

[Deleted]

cool. that's what i thought but wanted to make sure. i have a similar goal and Barbarian Prince readily lends itself to the task. i was thinking i would convert BP to LAW eventually but i've been toying with different methods of generating random dungeons to insert into the BP overworld as quests picked up in towns from 'Seeking News and Information', 'Searching Ruins', and as random encounters (like the 'e056 Orc Tower', 'e054 Goblin Keep', 'e067 Abandoned Mines', etc.).

i'm just about ready to give up on that goal though and just do a basically straight conversion to a LAW-based, overworld romp.

i feel like i'm one of those "lost souls crying in the wilderness" too.

i'm curious about what direction you intend to take with BP. will it be Arthurian like Grailquest? or will you be aiming to do something more like a straight conversion also?

regarding the link, make sure you check out the "Improved Travel Table" in the download links. it is much more user friendly than the original game materials. also, i found a very nice remake of the map here: forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2348

i actually like the 'artwork' of the original map better but the remakes are much more legible. i've seen another map remake somewhere but can't remember where. it is also very legible but is not very colorful or intuitive with it's choice of colors as it tries to simulate the look of a map drawn on old parchment.

also, if you intend to do any hex mapping or editing, i found hexographer very handy. there is paid/install version and a free online version that runs in a java window yet still seems very full-featured. here is the link to the free online version: www.hexographer.com/free-version/

if you wish to team up in this endeavor or just exchange information and ideas related to this, please feel freem to PM me and exchange email addresses etc.

[Deleted]

as far as my frustration with generating some random dungeons goes, i'm hindered by 3 things:
1. i really like the flavor of a text-based dungeon but hate the chore of mapping a dungeon as a player
2. i really like the 'pretty pictures' of a tile-based dungeon and the fact that mapping is automatically handled for a player but decent tiles take up a lot of tabletop space and there's no flavor text.
(i can't commit to a direction on the 2 above and keep trying to find a way to merge the 2 approaches together into something simple and elegant. this is part of the reason why i like the design of LAW adventures so much. LAW adventures have a great mix of text and tile (battle map))
3. generate random quests in towns as part of 'Seek News and Information' etc. and inject this into the randomly generated dungeon.

i've thought of a way to accomplish #3 using cards but i'm trying to stay away from cards because i've created a boardgame that uses a bunch of cards before. printing and laminating 75 cards was not fun and i don't look forward to that, although i did enjoy creating the graphics for those cards. (the game was basically Heroquest forced onto a monopoly-like board. i managed to get my brother, his wife, and my 10yr old niece to play it with me 3-4 times but i kept changing the rules and i think it pissed them off )

[Deleted]

wow! its been nearly a year since i first discovered and read through some of the events in BP. it doesn't need any added 'random dungeons'. they're already built in! good good stuff!

[Deleted]

i started trying to do this...and it's harder than i thought it would be...at least, for most of the encounters.