Getting Started...

I am not going to bore you with details on getting the app and setting it up, yadda, yadda, yadda…  I have plenty of other stuff to bore you with.  It probably goes without saying that I have chosen to play the original trilogy in the order in which they were published; first stop… “The Bard’s Tale I: Tales of the Unknown” (BT1).  Once the app loaded, I found the links they provided to be a great start for my information gathering.

The first link, “?”, took me to http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/docs/bt1-manual.htm, the “Official Manual” for BT1.  A quick perusal of the manual gave me what I needed to start my adventure, the most important items being a listing of all the spells and bard songs.  Just what I was hoping to find!  So far, so good…

The map icon is linked to http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/maps/index.html.  Whoa! DANGER! DANGER! Danger, Will Rogers, DANGER!  It appears that all the maps, hacks and walkthroughs are available to me at just the tap of a finger.  All I need do is succumb to the temptation.  Must… resist… KAAAHHHHNNN!   Ok, all better.  Upon closer inspection, I have found the first map listed is the official map from Interplay, http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/1/maps/bt1-skara_brae.jpg.  BINGO!  All I need is now at my fingertips!

The third “Floppy” link takes me to a 3.5 floppy drive emulator containing a Game disk in slot one and a Character disk in slot two.  The only other option I see is a Return to Game button.  Nothing else on the screen can be manipulated, at least nothing I can see at the moment.

Sooo… back to the game and to the moment you have all been waiting for!  Start Bard’s Tale GS:

Thou art in the Guild of Adventurers.

Add a member

Create a member

Delete a member

Save the party

Leave the game

The game has offered a premade party for a quick start.  I personally prefer creating my own members, although I am not averse to stealing from the original party.  When creating members for my party, I am really not concerned about the whole Min/Max aspect of gaming.  I don’t care that Elves make the best magicians, or that Dwarves make the best fighters.  I like to have fun and will often create odd combinations.  Of course, there are often limitations created within the game itself, so my dream of a Gnome Paladin is still just a dream, however, I play for me, and that oft times means for strange bedfellows.  My party consists of:

Alfalfa the Human Paladin (boring)

Spanky the Dwarf Hunter (Spanky just screams dwarf to me… not to mention hunter)

Buckwheat the Hobbit Monk (I wonder if there is a copyright infringement in there somewhere)

Froggy the Half-Elf Bard (Yes, I had to go there…)

Darla the Half-Orc Conjurer (I should make mention that only Male characters are allowed.  No comment on the use of Half-Orc for the only female of the party.)

Porky the Gnome Magician (In the same vein that Spanky was screaming dwarf…)

The game allows for an easy reroll of stats if you don’t like the first set of random numbers you started with.  I did take advantage of this in an attempt to make my characters as survivable as possible.  Stats rolled (based on three 6-sided dice) should fall somewhere between 3-18, although I don’t ever remember seeing anything below a nine.  The main stats I looked for were Intelligence and Spell Points for Darla and Porky (on a side note, the highest Intelligence I could get for Darla was 11) and Dexterity and Hit Points for the remainder of the party.  A high dexterity gives a bonus to starting Armor Class, and the higher Hit Points speak for themselves.

Now that all members are accounted for, it is time to equip them.  For starters, I stripped the starter party.  All items were pretty generic except for the crown jewel… a Fire Horn for the Bard!!  Very nice!  If memory serves me (a fickle servant, at best) the Fire Horn can be used to fry multiple opponents.  An invaluable find, one that may actually give me a chance at survival, especially in the beginning.  Weapons are sharpened, and armor is buffed and ready; the spell casters have been dragged from their dusty towers, and the Bard from his frothy mug… 

The Adventure Begins…