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Last column, we installed the retro game Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures from the SSI Gold Box series of computerized Dungeons and Dragons games, and we examined how to answer the copy protection challenge while running the game. We’ll take a short look at loading up add-on modules in this month’s Retrogaming Revisited. Background of the Gold Box Adventure Series As you’ll remember from the last two columns, SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc. produced a series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons games for DOS called the Gold Box series back in the late 80’s and into the early 90’s. They used a common game engine, and allowed you to play AD&D against your computer. Gold Box titles included Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, and others. The final “game” to use the Gold Box engine was Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures. Rather than being an actual game, Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures could be described as a game-creation toolkit. A still active online community grew up around this concept, and there are hundreds of modules free to download and play for anyone who owns Unlimited Adventures. Most of the modules published for the original Advanced D&D game are available, along with many original adventures.
Fortunately for us Linux users, GOG.COM has a version of FRUA remastered for Ubuntu, as part of their Forgotten Realms Collection 2 (which includes several other Gold Box games) for the price of $9.99. It’s a great value, considering it amounts to getting hundreds, of games when you factor in how many free modules are available for download. Finding and Downloading Modules Once you’ve installed the game, you’ll want to find modules in electronic format to download. There are multiple archives online where they can be found. Some of the best I’ve found are: http://frua.rosedragon.org/ http://frua.reonis.com/ (a backup of the rosedragon site) In addition, there are a HUGE number of other resources online regarding FRUA. For starters, there is a guide hosted on GOG.COM, located at https://www.gog.com/forum/forgotten_realms_collection/an_introduction_to_forgotten_realms_unlimited_adventures_frua_with_essential_links/page1. This provides tips on how and where to download modules and other content.
Remember last month we made a note of where FRUA was installed, by default at Home\GOG Games\Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. This is where we’ll need to place our downloaded and unzipped modules. Let’s try with the classic AD&D adventure, ‘The Tomb of Horrors’. An Infamous Player Killer Probably the most notorious and sinister module for the original pen and paper game is ‘The Tomb of Horrors’, written by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax. It is a truly challenging module filled with traps, a unique ‘boss monster’ designed for the module, and a vast number of challenging puzzles. So, since it’s an entirely inappropriate choice as an introduction to AD&D, let’s download it and use it as our example. In actuality, back when I was playing pen and paper D&D, I played almost exclusively as a Dungeon Master, as opposed to as a player. In one of the rare exceptions, I played a single session of TOH, unfortunately Dungeon Mastered by a very poor DM who went out of his way to run the session as a confrontation between him and the players (very much NOT in the spirit of how the game of D&D is intended to be run). I did purchase my own copy and read through it later, becoming resentful that this particular DM was not providing the players with information that he was supposed to convey. This largely explained why the game session was so frustrating that no one wanted to return to it (which is absolutely a predictable result of the confrontational approach to Dungeon Mastering).
Fortunately for me, this all took place literally decades ago, so I’ve forgotten pretty much every specific aspect of the module since originally reading it. FRUA therefore gives me an opportunity to experience the module as a single player (with a genuinely NEUTRAL DM in the form of the computer). Downloading and Extracting the Module So, first let’s go to http://frua.rosedragon.org/. You’ll see ‘Module Listing’ near the top of the page. Click this. On the new page, click ‘Classic PC Modules’, again near the top of the page. Scroll down until you find the first entry for Tomb of Horrors (there are multiple entries for it, as more than one person has converted it for FRUA). This one is by Ray Dyer, and should work fine. Click on game23.zip, and you’ll see the screen shown bottom left. I’ve chosen to establish a ‘holding location’ for my FRUA downloads, under Home/Downloads/Games/FRUA/Modules, so let’s save it there (shown bottom right) There is a ‘data’ folder under the game folder for FRUA and this is where we’ll need to extract the contents of game23.zip. First, we’ll need to open the File Manager, and navigate to the game install location. Open the ‘data’ folder and right click a blank area, then select ‘New Folder’. We have to maintain an 8 character naming convention followed by ‘.dsn’ to work with FRUA, so we’ll harness the power of imagination to name it ‘TOH.dsn’ (shown top right).
Now that we’ve created a landing space for our extracted files, we’ll go back to Home/Downloads/Games/FRUA/Modules and double-click game23.zip (shown above). Click ‘Extract’ at the top left then navigate to Home/Downloads/Games/FRUA/Modules/TOH.dsn, and extract the files. Afterwards, you’ll also need to go to the ‘Hamburger’ menu up top (great, now I’m hungry) and click the folder icon with a + symbol to create a new folder within the game folder. Name it ‘SAVE’, this will be where FRUA keeps your saved games and information: Playing the Game Module Now that we’ve gotten a module installed, it’s finally time to play! Go back to the FRUA desktop icon from last installment’s setup, and double-click.
Interruption/Correction: Copy Protection Last month, I made a mistake when describing how to get around the copy protection by using ALT-Enter to resize the DOSBox window and to open the manuals in PDF format. Turns out I should have paid closer attention to the intro screen: it specifies that the copy protection has been disabled. Conveniently,, now when it challenges you with a question about the manual text, you can actually type anything and hit ENTER, and the game will continue. Sorry for any confusion! Back to Playing the Game Module Once the game has launched and you’ve bypassed the copy protection, you’ll get a screen with multiple game options. The one we’re looking for is Select a Design. Click that with your sword pointer and you’ll see an option screen including S1: Tomb of Horrors. Select that option. Click Select at the bottom of the screen. Prepare to actually enter The Tomb of Horrors! Next month, that is, in part 4 of our 2 part series on FRUA!