Seeking title of Mac-only game from early '90s with detailed character creation system.

March 19, 2004 12:06 PM

EsotericMacSoftwareFilter: My senior year of college (1990-1991), I played a Mac-only role-playing game, the name of which escapes me. The game itself wasn't that good, but I loved the character creation system. You chose your mother and father's professions and that determined your base stats. Then you described how you spent your time in four-year blocks (25% study, 25% play, 50% womanizing, or whatever). These blocks further modified your character's scores. Over the years, I've conducted numerous web searches for this game, but for the life of me I can't find anything on it. Does anyone know which game this was? Does anyone know where I could buy (or download) a copy for my gathering-dust Mac SE?

Alternatively, can anyone recommend any RPGs (computer or traditional) that have similar character creation systems? I'm looking for something beyond mere dice-rolling.

posted by jdroth to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

If kicking sinks is your thing, and you want to sacrifice all your spare time, and you love exercises in futility, you might try nethack.
posted by namespan at 12:16 PM on March 19, 2004

That sort of alternative character creation is pretty common, I think. It was first done, to my memory, in ultima 4 (1985).

It looks like the game you might be referring to is Dark Heart of Uukrul (1990) -- it's one of the few RPGs released for apples around that time, and a usenet walkthrough discusses answering questions to create your character.

The dos version of the game is available for download at HOTU.
posted by malphigian at 1:03 PM on March 19, 2004

Is it listed on the Macintosh Garden?
posted by cmonkey at 1:08 PM on March 19, 2004

i never played dark heart, but i did play quite a bit of one rpg on the mac called Orb Quest. i see no mention of it on macintosh or google, so maybe it wasn't so popular or i have the name wrong, but basically you tromped around a dungeon clicking on monsters to hurt them, delving deeper as you went along. it was pretty fun, and the dungeon was randomly generated every time.

if you like good character generation, try wizardry. my favorite of any rpg series, you could spend hours making your characters. (wizardry 8's was changed from earlier games in the series, and i don't think it's as good.)
posted by moz at 2:53 PM on March 19, 2004

You could spend hours making your characters?

I take it playing the actual game isn't much of a priority, then.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:52 PM on March 19, 2004

sure it was!
posted by moz at 8:44 AM on March 20, 2004

For a traditional RPG with a similar character creation procedure, check out the amazing "Role-Master." (It was the game implicitly singled out when the (incredibly convoluted) D&D 2nd Edition said it had a 'simple' system.) The character creation system involves allocating 'development points' concerning your parents' lives, your hobbies, national pass-times, etc. And the game system itself, once you get past a pretty high learning curve, is frikkin' awesome. The design seems to favor straight-out player wit and luck over pure brute force. But for those who like brute force, it has near-legendary 'Critical Hit' charts. ("Ok, class-E critical on the Krush chart. I roll a 78. 'Your blow reduces your oppnent's hip to dust; he falls to the floor screaming in agony and is stunned for 2d8 turns - 5d4 damage+2 bleed.'") It's a great game.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:42 PM on March 20, 2004

Dude, I think you're talking about a late Infocom/Activision game...it might have been Quarterstaff? I've heard about this.
posted by inksyndicate at 6:04 PM on March 20, 2004