Talk to me of Dragon Quest

Sorry, couldn't resist.

On a more serious note, I don't really know jack about it, so now I'm curious too.

Here is a detailed discussion.
http://www.advanceddungeonsandparenting.com/2011/04/d-is-for-dragonquest.html

I know nothing of it either... except that it's NOT got anything to do with the old Dragon's Lair video game... though that's where my brain goes every time I hear the name.

One of my groups' DMs ran an adventure based on Dragon's Lair. Cool but didn't quite work due to 3.5 issues (we were about level 18, so he had anti-magic running in practically every room so we couldn't just fly or otherwise magic past most of it).

On topic: I got the Enchanted Wood adventure for DQ - written by Paul (Jennelle) Jacquays who also did a few highly regarded RQ things. It is sort of cool but is really very weird.

Well, I'll start with a mechanical run-down.  I'm most familiar with second edition but it's probably been twenty or more years since I owned it.

Dragon Quest is a broad skill based fantasy rpg by hex and counter wargame manufacturer SPI that attempts to model fantasy literature and myth using methods from wargaming.

Characters are created by spending points from a pool.  The size of the pool is determined by rolling on a table the more points you get the lower your maximum score is.

There are random rolls required to play a non-human or a woman (women are exempted but can always opt to play a man).

Skills are purchased with another pool of points, as are spells.  Equipment is bought with silver pennies.  If I remember right there's a background table to roll on.  Anyhow skills are bought in ranks, generally costing around 200 points for rank one and ascending from there.  Weapon skills and spells are specific whereas non-weapon skills are broad to the point of being more akin to classes like Spy, Thief, and Courtesan (yes they went there).  Skill chances are generally calculated as Stat + Stat + n x rank where n is often five but sometimes only three.

Combat in first edition used action points.  Second edition simplified this by using tactical movement rate expenditures.  Combat is, of course, hex based and there are some lovely shots of old Ral Partha figures in the book.  There are rules for parries and ripostes based on the attack roll as well as critical hits and fumbles with the attendant tables.  Damage is 1d10 +n for weapon type.  Characters have Fatigue and Endurance points which absorb inflicted damage and armor is subtracted from damage.  It plays fairly fast if you work out your numbers in advance and very slowly if you have to look them up and work them out on the spot.

Magic is divided into colleges including the usual air, earth, fire, and water but also including black magic with demonic pacts and familiars, naming incantations, and summoning.  Each College contains general knowledge spells that would be known to any initiate and special knowledge spells and rituals which would be available only to adepts.  The magic system is really evocative and tries to hand out the various spells and powers where they were traditionally found. There is a very nice selection of demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon which was left out of the third edition TSR published as was the black magic.

The range of creatures provided is pretty standard.  I can't recall any exceptional creativity or brilliance there-in.  There's a bit of stuff in the GM's section about the adventurer's guild and writing party charters and an adventure about a Hobgoblin Adept who is working with a group of Arab bandits.  I can't remember too much more about it except that the adventure suggested that if the bandits were defeated and he escaped, he would probably respect the PCs rather than hating them.

Well, that's all I've got.  It was an interesting thing and I often think I like GURPS with its hex based movement in part because it reminds me of Dragon Quest.

Dragonquest is a wonderful game that deserves better than it got, as an old abandoned system. At its peak, it had a following not unlike Runequest or Tunnels and Trolls, and its foundation was quite sound — you could easily picture it having a semi-infinite run of editions, adventures, settings, etc. much like these contemporaneous systems. But, TSR purchased it, printed a fucked up version, and then abandoned it. It is hard not to imagine this was simply an assassination of a rival system for generic FRP.

Anyway, there are a number of things about DQ that are distinctive. Some of these differences are noticeable but, in the end, trivial (e.g., point buy character generation; types of stats). Others are quite innovative and significant:

1) Most importantly, the skill system is perhaps the smartest, most satisfying to play compromise between 'skill' and 'class and level' systems I've encountered. Basically, most skills occur as package deals, like 'thief' or 'ranger' or 'healer' — each is effectively a package of class-like abilities. One purchases levels in them by expending experience points, and one is free to mix and match at will. It effortlessly achieves a diversity and balance among class-like roles that D&D has long struggled to achieve. Yet it retains the strength of class-based systems because you don't need to keep track of a million separate abilities. A shorthand note of your level with a couple of skill packages functionally contains all the information you would get in a whole sheet of skills in Runequest.

2) The magic system is filled with fun, creepy, flavorful spells. The experience and advancement system for magic is a bit fucked, but it is easy to picture how you could generalize the approach to skill packages (above) and make it more manageable.

3) Combat has the tactical X's and O's of The Fantasy Trip, the skill-based abilities and damage reducing armor of Runequest, and its own innovation for damage and injury — separation of 'hit points' (effectively) into an easy-come-easy-go category (fatigue) and a physical harm category (endurance). I actually prefer the 1st edition, where you use action points. But I understand this is a matter of taste. Fortunately it is an easy choice — 2nd edition removes the action point system but is otherwise closely similar.

I could go on, but these are the high points. This is a game that would be amazing it a well-crafted modern edition were put out — i.e., something that is to DQ as RQ6 is to original Runequest.

Of note. It is d10 and percentile based like SPI's other RPG, Universe.

I have one module from TSR which is a combined Dragonquest/AD&D module by Paul Jaquays.

Well, I could be wrong (probably am) but I vaguely remember reading a review of Dragon Quest in Dragon Magazine back in the early 80's. I remember the reviewer saying there were only two character classes: warrior and wizard, and the wizard was far more powerful and useful. Warriors had their uses but were basically sidekicks to wizards. Don't remember much about about the game from the review.

I never knew anyone who played it and can't even recall seeing it on the store shelves back then.

(Wasn't that the game with the cover of a grinning warrior holding a sword and severed head?)

That's not a very good description of the power dynamic in the game. Magic can be powerful but it takes a long time to get so good at it that you can reliably take down non-magical characters of similar experience level.

In my small Midwestern college town it had quite a following: It was what the "Cool" older gamers (Guys who would now be in their fifties) played instead of D&D*. In the 90's (After the game was unceremoniously snuffed by TSR but before Internet downloads allowed any obscurity to be reborn) there were a lot of privately printed spiral-bound bootleg copies floating around. I wish I had bought one when I had the chance. I would almost rather have one of those bootlegs than a real printing, for nostalgia reasons.

I did get to play in a long campaign of it. It's very eighties and has some eccentricities but it's a solid system and the rules never got in the way of the fun. The "Naming" college of magic, where you got power over someone by knowing their birth name, was really flavorful and cool (It wasn't from the core book IIRC).

*RuneQuest & Tunnels & Trolls never came here, even in the heady days of the eighties when we had a really bustling gaming scene. There was a very small cult of RoleMaster.

Quote from: Doughdee222;785973Well, I could be wrong (probably am) but I vaguely remember reading a review of Dragon Quest in Dragon Magazine back in the early 80's. I remember the reviewer saying there were only two character classes: warrior and wizard, and the wizard was far more powerful and useful. Warriors had their uses but were basically sidekicks to wizards.
)

As I recall: No actual "Character classes". Every character could learn a college of magic. In fact, you were sort of encouraged to... In the DQ implied world, you weren't a well-rounded person unless you knew some sorcery. If you didn't learn magic, you got a +25% bonus to rolls to resist magic -a kinda shitty token consolation prize.

The game was admittedly pretty crap at modeling Conan-types, but very good at modeling Elric or The Grey Mouser "I know a little of everything" types.

Another note. The books are laid out in standard SPI format and once you are used to SPIs structuring about all their games become easy to read through.
The weapons and armour listings are in the same format as used in Universe if I recall correctly.

Grevious injuries I recall being particularly brutal. One player recounted how they took a grevious wound to the head and was bedridden for a game year. ow. His friend had his face laid open with a cut and actually GAINED a point of Beauty!

Dragonquest is notable for an early RPG to have cantrips.

Thanks very much for the feedback guys. I played this for 5-6 sessions when I was 19 at Uni and I remember it very fondly. So fondly that I have, as you all wrote, sourced both a copy of 2nd ed SPI and also 3rd ed TSR, both for pocket money prices or swapsies, and I am going to sit down and read it.

I remember some bits very well, the colleges, the astrology in the character gen, the split between proper hit points and temporary ones. I have to say that is it had gone to Victory Games with the SPI guys or SPI hadn't been bought out by TSR many more people would be playing it.

Since I got one copy by agreeing to run it, for someone who also played it years ago at school, I'll report back when I do!