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An Observation about Ultima Online


Paul_Va

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Ken did a lot of work for TES, and "borrowed" a lot from Glorantha for the Tamriel setting. The TES system is clearly a derivative of RuneQuest itself, and it was so even before Ken joined the crew.

The Ultima game system is not so close to BRP, but at the time it was created it diverged from standard fantasy even more than TES does now. IIRC it borrows the base stats from The Fantasy Trip, and becomes %ile and skill-based only with Ultima Online. However, it started using Magic Points for spells in the 80s. Nowadays everyone playing a fantasy game on a computer is used to having the Red Bar and the Blue Bar and immediately knows what they mean, but back in the days it was innovative. And clearly inspired by RuneQuest.

Proud member of the Evil CompetitionTM

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I have fond memories of UO. I started playing within the first week and was a beta tester for the first expansion, but haven't played seriously in years.

My brother also played close to launch but stopped for the Marines. When he came back he started playing again. Apparently he is so awesome he can beat every monster solo except two, and is mayor of Minoc. LOL. He won an archery tournament with a character named after one of my former RPG characters. Also a major honor.

Anyway, I'd love to play in a (pre U9) Ultima campaign. I always loved the setting.

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  • 1 month later...

Ken did a lot of work for TES, and "borrowed" a lot from Glorantha for the Tamriel setting. The TES system is clearly a derivative of RuneQuest itself, and it was so even before Ken joined the crrw...

Thanks for explaining why 1) I love old TES mechanics and 2) why the books in the game are worth reading (I only own Daggerfall, but I have an Android app of every book).

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I myself would love to play in a BRP-ish TES pen-and-paper game. Those were the greatest games, Daggerfall being my favorite, followed by Morrowind (which I didn't really like the art for). Haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim though, old computer. <sigh>

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I myself would love to play in a BRP-ish TES pen-and-paper game. Those were the greatest games, Daggerfall being my favorite, followed by Morrowind (which I didn't really like the art for). Haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim though, old computer. <sigh>
You might enjoy Oblivion or Skyrim, but I consider them TESINO (The Elder Scrolls in Name Only). Action crawlers with very limited and small environments, simple quests, none of the cool stuff like climbing walls or busting in doors, very simplistic character creation and management. Aside from graphics and a dated interface Daggerfall is superior in all ways, from an oldschool crawler and tabletop point of view.
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I myself would love to play in a BRP-ish TES pen-and-paper game. Those were the greatest games, Daggerfall being my favorite, followed by Morrowind (which I didn't really like the art for). Haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim though, old computer. <sigh>

I will leave this link to the The Design Mechanism-forums here. The UESRPG is worth keeping an eye on.

http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/looking-for-elder-scrolls-oblivion-skyrim-setting-for-rq6-t388.html

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