Memories of Ultima IV
If a single positive resulted from the work of that woefully misinformed but correctly acronymed organization BADD (Bothered about Dungeons & Dragons), a group that waged a crusade to stop children from jumping into the Bags of Holding that they learned to construct from an $11.99 hardcover rulebook purchased at a hobby store, it was the computer RPG Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar. To this day, it’s only video RPG I’ve ever loved. And I’m not the only one who got sucked into this fantasy computer game when it was first published by Origin Systems in 1985 for a variety of platforms. (This was also the year of The Bard’s Tale from Electronic Arts; a major time for computer RPGs.)
By the middle of the decade, Richard Garriott, who programs under the pseudonym “Lord British,” had completed the first three of the Ultima games, featuring standard RPG plots where heroes had to vanquish a series of Dark Lords and their descendants. He had received complaints from parents about the demonic nature of these games—and the cover of Ultima III: Exodus in particular—and certainly knew about BADD’s anti-fantasy game campaign. But Garriott did something interesting instead of shrugging off the complaints. He used them to see if he could devise a new challenge for a computer game that wouldn’t use the standard “defeat the Big Bad Guy” of fantasy RPGs. What if the players had to actually live up to the extraordinary standards of acting as great, chivalric heroes? In fact, what if that was the whole point of the game: achieve the highest level of moral heroism so the players turned into ethical cynosures for the whole world? What was called, in game terms, an “Avatar”?
Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons has been with us for about a year now; long enough for the gaming community to get a pretty good taste of it. I’ve been hearing various reports from gamer friends about the system, and opinions of it have fallen across a roughly tripartite spectrum, from favorable to neutral to negative. Among these views, though, there is agreement that this isn’t the same old Dungeons and Dragons. Fans of Fourth Edition sometimes call it a “transformation,” or point out, “This time around they didn’t have any sacred cows. They were ready to change anything.” Critics have generally agreed that “It might be a game some people like, but it’s no longer D&D.”
The death of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, marks the passing of an era. Gygax changed the face of fantasy like no other since J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard. D&D brought people together, forged lasting friendships, and introduced a whole new generation to classic fantasy — in the process firing imaginations, heavily influencing the fledgling computer and video game markets, and laying the foundation for the billion-dollar online RPG industry. Just as importantly Gygax invited — indeed, demanded — that his readers become creators themselves, and the young fans he inspired eventually became some of today’s bestselling authors, including Raymond E. Feist, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, R. A. Salvatore, Ed Greenwood, and dozens of others.