#and it took taking a chance on an relatively unknown title that was published several decades ago for me to find something that spoke 2 me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aelaer · 4 years

Text

The Blood in Our Veins (a serial)

I had Part 3 partially written out since March, but inspiration struck from the middle of nowhere and I was able to complete it last night. Everyone tagged asked to be tagged months ago, just let me know if you want to be added/removed from the update tag list. Earlier parts linked for convenience as it’s been ages and a lot of you probably don’t remember parts 1 and 2, haha. Apologies for length if you’re on mobile without a working cut tag.

Prompt (via @ironstrangeprompts): Kidnapped to play doctor for a still unseen other prisoner; Stephen realizes there is only one person on the planet who would have palladium in their blood.

This is unbetaed; apologies for any errors.

Part 1 | Part 2 |

Part 3 - Signs Were Not Really That Scarce

Doctor Baar was going to sleep, but Doctors Ferguson and Weston (Jada and Summer, Stephen reminded himself) kept him busy immediately upon waking him up. The former had him prepping more slides and helping input her handwritten data into the computer, while with the latter he started the loose beginnings of a plan for surgery with the incomplete picture they had.

By the time another two hours had ticked by and he was working again with Doctor Mahajan on prepping yet more samples, Stephen was doing all in his power to focus on the repetitive tasks at hand rather than let his mind wander to consider his circumstances.

He was very good at focusing; he always had been. It was partially his power of intense concentration and attention to detail that he was able to perform surgeries that others simply didn't have the skills to perform. Despite his relatively short career thus far, he was already making a name for himself amongst his peers.

But at this point in Stephen's life, that type of focus was for challenging surgical cases and putting his mind to work towards new and improved techniques in the neurosurgical field. On the other hand, the relative monotony of lab technician work could only distract him from his thoughts for so long. And as the minutes ticked by, Stephen was starting to feel the crawling anxiety of the unknown inch forward.

He forced himself to slowly inhale, then exhale. He did it again for good measure. Then he pushed his wandering thoughts towards something calm and more meditative. This turned him to mentally reviewing as many recent studies as he could recall reading within the larger medical field.

Immediately the papers of his fellow abductees came to mind, and Stephen pushed past those to the unrelated papers he could remember. And there were plenty of those, enough he could recall to categorize them by specialty. His near-eidetic memory certainly helped there—and it was more interesting than listing off the discographies of all artists on Billboard's Top 100 of 1981.

This exercise began helping quickly. His memory did not have these papers memorized word for word, but he could remember the important bits of the study and he began to recite them in his head. What part of his mind wasn't focused on Doctor Mahajan's slides went through the names of doctors, the titles, the summaries, and whatever little details he could recall from his readings over the last year.

The neurology papers came first to mind, naturally. Recalling all new research over the last several months put him at ease; it was in this realm that his own ideas began to take root, drawing from the conclusions of other neurosurgeons to develop his own hypotheses to begin research on later.

But Stephen had no place to jot down his stray musings, which brought reminder to his situation again. Before any anxiety about his situation could take root again, he instead abandoned neurology to remember papers in other fields, even as his nimble fingers continued transferring the blood samples to slides, each labeled accordingly.

He planned on continuing as such without pause until all blood tests had been prepped (and the amount of testing and the speed of results that was being accomplished for a single man was truly phenomenal). But Stephen's hand suddenly jerked, nearly ruining one of the samples.

Doctor Mahajan stood just to his right and, at such proximity, noticed. "Doctor Strange? Are you alright?"

Stephen didn't process her question immediately; his brain was still reeling from his sudden realization. His mind was in the middle of citing a recent cardiothoracic study when he remembered another article. It wasn't even a study in the normal sense of the word, but rather a look at the miraculous ways a body can survive trauma and the modern technology used to help in the process. One part of the article covered the miraculous survival of—

"Tony Stark," he murmured aloud.

Doctor Mahajan sent him an alarmed look. "Not so loud!" she hissed.

Stephen blinked, then looked back at her. He ignored her comment, but made sure to keep his voice low. "I remember reading about the technology he used to keep shrapnel from his heart. It had a palladium core, the implant. We're trying to keep Tony Stark alive, aren't we?"

"Don't talk about it," she snapped back in a whisper. She refused to look at him.

Stephen paused and frowned at her. What the hell was her problem? "Do you have an issue with me?" he asked the Brit, his voice unconsciously rising in his irritation.

Doctor Mahajan shook her head but continued to avoid looking at him. "Just—just leave me alone."

Before he could say anything (and what could he say to that?) he heard "Stephen," come from behind him. He turned and Jada was there. "Summer needs your help in making out something on an X-ray. I'll continue assisting Doctor Mahajan."

With one last frown at Doctor Mahajan, Stephen nodded to Jada and made his way to the cardiothoracic surgeon on the other side of the room. When he reached her, he asked, "What is it?" There was no X-ray pulled up on the computer.

"Doctor Mahajan is on the verge of a panic attack," Summer explained softly. "Jada recognized it. She'll help calm her down."

Unwelcome guilt edged into his conscience. "I didn't know."

"We know," she reassured him. "We're not blaming you. Meera won't, either. But she has rather bad anxiety that is more sensitive right now for, well, obvious reasons."

Probably what the medication was for, Stephen presumed. "I didn't mean to trigger an attack."

She nodded. "I know," she repeated. "What did you say? We'll want to avoid whatever it was in the future."

He cleared his throat and then lowered his voice further. "I figured out who on earth would have continuous palladium poisoning. His name did it."

Summer exhaled and nodded. "It was only a matter of time before you figured it out."

Stephen frowned once more. "You know the patient is Tony Stark?"

"Everyone does," she answered in a whisper, "but we don't mention it. I'd not say his name again, either; we haven't figured out if there are microphones in here or how strong they might be. We don't know if they care that we've figured it out." And after saying that, she opened the actual X-rays on her computer and shuffled through her notepad to look busy.

Stephen took her lead and stepped closer to look at her notepad as if reading it. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that others would remember the news—about what was told of the procedure that saved his life," he said. "There was nothing written indicating any reaction to the palladium core, though."

Summer shrugged. "He never mentioned it. I looked through every mention of his procedure I could find when they were first published, and there weren't many. The patient only gave his version of events and never let any doctor closely study it, from my understanding." She pursed her lips. "It was the X-rays that gave it away for me, at least."

"I was reciting medical papers I could remember. A cardiothoracic study nudged my memory to one of those articles that came out last year about his survival." Stephen pressed his lips together into a thin line. "But with the last newscast I heard about the patient a few days ago, I honestly should have thought of him sooner."

She pretended to write something down. "Kidnapped two times in a year's time," she murmured. "That's rough. Do you remember when they reported him missing on the news?"

"March 20th," he said. Stephen recalled easily; Tony Stark's disappearance during a race in India was all anyone was talking about for a week. "So just over a month ago."

She nodded and flipped to another X-ray photo. "Fits the timeline of how long Steffen and Jada have been here, too. They came a few days after that, if I recall correctly."

Stephen nodded and, as he stared blankly at the X-ray, found himself falling into his thoughts. Tony Stark—until very recently a weapons manufacturer, and who, until very recently, Stephen would have turned away if given the chance. Granted, he wasn't quite at the point where he could easily turn away patients to other neurosurgeons. He was certain he'd be there in two to three years in both the level of demand for his services and his influence with the hospital's administration. But even then, even as a neurosurgeon who was still growing in prestige, if someone had asked him a year ago if he wanted to operate on Tony Stark, he would have said no.

That was a year ago. That was before Tony Stark got kidnapped by terrorists for three months and came back ending all weapons production in his company. That was before he became some sort of—Stephen didn't want to use the word superhero, but he didn't know what else to call it.

Stephen had no idea what he thought of Tony Stark now. He had little reason to consider him beyond the gossip on TV and within the office. But now here he was, forced to be part of a team to help keep him alive.

Mind boggling.

He exhaled softly and focused again on the cropped X-ray on the screen. His opinion on the billionaire, whatever it was, hardly mattered right then. Whether he wished it or not, Tony Stark was his patient and as such, he would do his best to perform his duty as a doctor. Whether that meant simply helping out with samples or performing what would be a long and complicated surgery remained to be seen.

— — — — — —

The race in India is from a ridiculous limited edition tie-in comic that I could only find information about on the 2010 timeline on the MCU Wiki. It made a great plot device though.

I figure I’ll also say that Tony’s coming in the next chapter. I have a few hundred words written on that, but I’m still trying to figure out just how badly I want to treat the protagonists and if I’m the bad guys are just going to start murdering doctors. And all named characters in this series, canon and OC, have PhDs, so there’s lots of doctors to potentially murder.

Lil tidbit: When I realized that this prompt fill was going to become A Monster, I knew I wanted each part to have a name. So before publishing the first part, I went through my Spotify favorites and wrote down all my favorite lyrics in a document. This document has now grown into nearly 5,000 words of possible lyric titles for chapters and fics.

(Feel free to try and guess where the titles come from if you want. The serial name and each part are full or partial lyrics from favorite songs)

Tag list: @sobeautifullyobsessed, @tashacumberbitch @babywarg, @nishtha3012, @ragingstillness, @walkin-in-the-cosmos, @lafourmii20, @asexualchemist, @iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife, @oo0-will-of-the-wisp-0oo , @animefanfreak45

Let me know if you want to be tagged for future updates in a comment (as it won't be on AO3 for a while and has no steady update schedule planned). Or let me know if you want to be removed.

#stephen strange #tony stark #doctor strange fanfic #mcu #fanfic #prompt fill #my writing #my fanfiction #genre: au #avengers fanfiction #long post

30 notes · View notes

happy2bmyownboss · 5 years

Text

Hey ya’ll I know we’ve been really quiet here at Kirby’s Kabin but we haven’t forgotten about everyone. Things have been really busy and crazy. We have a couple of BIG things going on and hoping to share some big news soon… so please say a prayer for us as we are awaiting some news to let us know which direction we will be taking in the future.

I realized a while back that I’ve never really told our story to you and I have posted it on another blog I started a while back… that one hasn’t gotten very far at all with our crazy schedules but here is a quick start to our craziness…

First published August 2, 2018

What you are about to read has never been published on any site before. It is not meant to be a pity party or anything of that nature just a background of who we are and how we came to be where we are now. It is a bit lengthy so be prepared.

Our special needs journey began in the Fall of 2010. We had just learned we were expecting after being told by a doctor I would never carry another baby again because of health issues. It was late one evening when I got the call saying that Child Services needed a place for my nieces and nephew to stay.

‘It is only temporary’, the voice on the line said, ‘just until she can get herself straight’. I took a deep breath and agreed to let them come stay with me not having a clue of the chaos I was getting my family into.

I informed my four children ages 11, 13, 15, and 17 of what was going on so they would know what to expect. The girls were super excited as they loved their little cousins. The boys were not so excited but were happy that we were in a position to help. I was a little unsure that our house was even big enough to ‘pass inspection’.

Later that night the worker appeared with 2 of the 3 babies and some McDonalds in hand. It was kind of a blur as she went through form after form and so many instructions! I signed and initialed and signed some more. I added contact numbers to my phone and wrote down many reminders before she left.

Then later that night I had to break the news to my husband who wasn’t quite as excited as I was as he had been through this scenario a time or two before. (I wasn’t able to reach him beforehand as he was at work.) The next few days and weeks were full of running here and there, filling out more paperwork, going to doctor visits, specialist visits, and many interviews of all sorts.

Let’s just say that the next few months (and years) have been a roller coaster in more ways than one. The oldest, William, was born with Down’s Syndrome and had been diagnosed with ADHD along with several other issues. He was 8 at them time and had not been potty trained and was not very verbal at all.

The next in line, Caitlyn, was 3 at the time. She was diagnosed with ODD (Oppostional Defiant Disorder) and later diagnosed with ADHD like her brother. She was not immediately placed with me for reasons unknown but eventually made her voice known and was reunited with her siblings on full time basis later on.

The littlest of the bunch, Isabella, was just shy of being 2. She was extremely shy and labeled as ’emotionally disturbed’ by some of the specialists. To say we had our hands full was an understatement. Then we had to deal with a lot of emotional relatives while trying to keep the children’s best interest in mind at all times. It did get quite confusing, stressful, and overwhelming at times along the way.

Just a couple of months after having the precious kiddos placed in our care I suffered a miscarriage which was the fourth one I had had since my then young child had been born. This was a very traumatic event as EMS had to be called and I spent a bit of time in the hospital but my older kids all pitched in and helped out.

We made it through that event and lo and behold a few months later we found out we were expecting again. All the while I was so busy trying to figure out the special needs of our special needs children. I had to take a crash course and gather as much information as I could from the doctors, teachers, and specialists.

With a lot of hard work and dedication we had some major triumphs in helping each of the kiddos flourish. William became Mr. Personality and was potty trained in a matter or months.

Ms. Caitlyn became a very spunky young lady which earned her the title of Ms. Attitude. Little Bella quickly found her voice and we couldn’t get her to stop talking! The changes in just a few short months were unreal!

Then in early 2012 I delivered a baby boy who we call Joey. This again proved to be a very trying time as we spent several days in the NICU which was over an hour away from where we called home. Soon enough he was able to come home and join his 7 other siblings. Somewhere around this time we were offered the chance to officially adopt the three little ones who were now calling me Momma.

During the Spring we worked hard to get all of our paperwork submitted for adoptions. There were more doctors appointments, specialist, psychologists, and tons of interviews to complete before were could be officially approved. We also worked hard on the place that was to be our home for the next several years.

Then in the Summer of 2012 all three of them were made official members of the ‘Kirby’ family. We were all so excited. It was a very special occasion for us but a sad event for others.

There were some family members who didn’t agree with our decision and made it known. Part of the reason we moved before the adoption was due to circumstances related to the way some relatives felt.

While this event brought some of others closer together it also caused a huge rift with some of our extended family. Looking back on it I know that we did what was in the best interest of my children, all of them, and I wouldn’t change a thing. OK, well maybe I would have changed a couple of things but we won’t discuss that here.

To be continued…..

And Now He Calls Me Momma Hey ya'll I know we've been really quiet here at Kirby's Kabin but we haven't forgotten about everyone.

#adoption #Family #featured #Kids #Life

0 notes

your-dietician · 3 years

Text

Ranking the college football head coaching hires for 2021, from Gus Malzahn to Terry Bowden

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/sports/ranking-the-college-football-head-coaching-hires-for-2021-from-gus-malzahn-to-terry-bowden/

Ranking the college football head coaching hires for 2021, from Gus Malzahn to Terry Bowden

Editor’s note: This story was updated June 17, 2021, to include new hires.

Auburn paid Gus Malzahn $21.45 million to pack up his stuff and never coach the Tigers again. Tennessee owes Central Florida $6 million in combined buyouts for new athletics director Danny White and coach Josh Heupel.

Availability and increased financial flexibility on both sides allowed UCF and Malzahn to connect on a five-year deal worth $2.3 million annually. It’s a bargain-basement deal relative to Malzahn’s ample SEC experience and the program’s goals of reaching the College Football Playoff and aligning itself for the next round of conference expansion.

On paper, Malzahn and UCF are the dream marriage of the 2020-21 coaching cycle, which was expected to barely make a whisper amid the COVID-19 pandemic but still yielded 15 changes, down from 24 moves a year ago.

That says something about Malzahn and UCF — though you can find flaws in the new pairing if you look close enough — and about the uninspiring series of coaching hires, which featured a handful of big names but largely involved Group of Five and second-level Power Five programs.

The hires can’t be fully judged until three or four years down the road. For now, let’s rank the new names by best fit and the best chance for immediate and long-term success.

Gus Malzahn led Auburn to a 68-35 record in eight seasons before getting fired in December.

1. Gus Malzahn, UCF

Malzahn will inherit one of the top teams in the Group of Five, including one of the nation’s best quarterbacks in Dillon Gabriel, and for the first time in his coaching career have the luxury of holding a talent advantage against nearly every opponent. First off, he’ll have to show how his hurry-up offense can be tailored to fit Gabriel. But to reel in a coach who won 66% of his games at Auburn (2012-20), beat Alabama three times and played for a national championship is an enormous victory for UCF.

2. Bryan Harsin, Auburn

Harsin had options over the years but waited patiently for the right opportunity, following the trajectory of a career that has always taken a calculated approach to the next move. His program at Boise State (2014-20), where he won 78% of his games but never fully escaped Chris Petersen’s shadow, developed the most important positions on the field: quarterbacks, offensive tackles and edge rushers. As long as the standard for success isn’t unseating Nick Saban and Alabama from atop the SEC, Harsin is a very good fit.

Story continues

3. Steve Sarkisian, Texas

The latest coach to refurbish his reputation with the Crimson Tide, Sarkisian takes over a program fresh off three consecutive top-ranked recruiting classes but in need of a new voice and an established identity on offense. Sarkisian will immediately deliver the latter and make the Longhorns a popular destination for regional and national recruits.

4. Andy Avalos, Boise State

A former Boise State linebacker and defensive coordinator, Avalos is more than ready for a return to his alma mater after spending the last two seasons under Mario Cristobal at Oregon. While former Boise quarterback Kellen Moore was the popular choice to replace Harsin before deciding to stay in the NFL, Avalos is a rising star in the profession and the next possible long-term fit for the Broncos.

Crimson Tide analyst Butch Jones relaxes before the game against the Volunteers at Neyland Stadium.

5. Lance Leipold, Kansas

All he does is win: Leipold took home six Division III national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater and then transformed Buffalo into a MAC power. His 2020 team went 6-1, won the MAC East, finished fifth nationally in scoring and became the first team in program history to notch a national ranking. Does this make him overqualified for the nation’s worst Power Five job? Not really, since his predecessor, Les Miles, brought a national championship to Lawrence. But this track record makes him a perfect fit: Leipold is drawn to the fine art of program construction, and KU will give him the time, support and starting point to paint his masterpiece.

6. Butch Jones, Arkansas State

Jones is back in more comfortable surroundings at Arkansas State, one of the most consistently successful programs in the Group of Five. Before being hammered on his way out of the SEC at Tennessee and learning new tricks in his three years as an off-field assistant at Alabama, Jones won 50 games in six seasons at Central Michigan (2007-09) and Cincinnati (2010-12).

7. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt

Lea made his national reputation by putting together three top-15 defenses in a row as the coordinator at Notre Dame. The question of how serving as an assistant at Notre Dame prepares you for running the show with the Commodores — a genuinely important question to ask — is tempered by Lea’s time as a Vanderbilt linebacker (2002-04), giving him a taste of how the program has operated in the past and what can be done to bring the team back into SEC contention.

8. Charles Huff, Marshall

Huff brings an outstanding résumé as an assistant — led by recent stints at Penn State, Mississippi State and Alabama — to a program with expectations of always being in the driver’s seat for the Conference USA championship. Learning under Saban and James Franklin (Penn State) gives Huff an edge over most first-time Group of Five head coaches.

9. Bret Bielema, Illinois

Bielema has a history of success in the Big Ten that bodes well for Illinois. But with a substantial project ahead as the Illini aim for the top half of the West division, Bielema must show he has the energy to recruit and develop talent after the collapse of his tenure at Arkansas (2013-17).

10. Blake Anderson, Utah State

Anderson gets a fresh start after seven strong seasons at Arkansas State (2014-20), where his teams won or shared three Sun Belt championships. Much like Harsin, his predecessor with the Red Wolves, Anderson develops skill talent and has an established blueprint for success in the Group of Five ranks.

11. Josh Heupel, Tennessee

Heupel accepts the toughest job of any new hire: taking the mess that is Tennessee and slowly bringing the Volunteers back into the mix for the division championship and New Year’s Six bowls. That’s a multiple-year process, if it happens at all. If not the name most UT fans were expecting, Heupel will update an underwhelming offense and make Knoxville an appealing destination for skill talent.

12. Shane Beamer, South Carolina

Beamer has worked for Steve Spurrier at South Carolina (2007-10); for his father, Frank, at Virginia Tech (2011-15); for Kirby Smart at Georgia (2016); and most recently for Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma (2017-20), helping the Sooners to three playoff berths. The résumé speaks for itself. But there are unanswered questions about how Beamer and his staff will fare in a crowded recruiting scene and what the offense will look like in 2021 and beyond.

13. Will Hall, Southern Mississippi

Speaking of offenses: Hall’s up-tempo philosophy has been a success on almost every level of NCAA competition, from his time as a Division II head coach at West Alabama (2011-13) and West Georgia (2014-16) through his stints as an assistant at Louisiana-Lafayette (2017), Memphis (2018) and Tulane (2019-20).

14. Kane Wommack, South Alabama

Wommack’s age — at just 33, he’s the youngest coach in the Football Bowl Subdivision — is not the concern it would’ve been made out to be a decade ago, when few schools had the nerve to hand over the keys to a coach little more than a decade removed from his own college experience. He’s also coached at South Alabama (2016-17) and was recently the defensive coordinator for Indiana’s breakthrough 2020 season. In all, Wommack represents a slight gamble for a program in need of a rebuild and an example of a Group of Five team buying low on a young coach viewed as one of the up-and-coming defensive minds in the sport.

Jedd Fisch’s last stop was as quarterbacks coach with the New England Patriots.

15. Maurice Linguist, Buffalo

Linguist takes over for Leipold after a very brief stint as the defensive coordinator at Michigan. The former Baylor defensive back, 37, has been across the college football map since 2012, when he began the first of two seasons as the Bulls’ defensive backs coach. Since then, Linguist has spent two years at Iowa State, one year at Mississippi State, a season at Minnesota, two seasons at Texas A&M and one year in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys. So what does that tell us about Linguist? He’s taken on more and more responsibilities and been hired by some of the biggest names in the sport, if we count his few months with the Wolverines. But there are several unknowns about the Bulls’ new coach, who has never been a coordinator and takes over a roster depleted by attrition.

16. Jedd Fisch, Arizona

Arizona is banking on a coaching vagabond with one year of Pac-12 experience (UCLA in 2017) having the chops needed to bring the Wildcats out of the conference basement and into the mix for bowl bids, let alone a division title. Fisch has hired well, including the addition of former Michigan assistant Don Brown as his defensive coordinator, but does not seem to match the qualities Arizona initially laid out as prerequisites for its next coach.

17. Terry Bowden, Louisiana-Monroe

Bowden’s time at Akron (2012-18) should give him a taste of what’s to come at ULM, which never led for a single second during the 2020 season. Is the 64-year-old former Auburn coach the right fit for a program that needs a complete reboot? In good news, you have to like Bowden’s addition of former West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez as offensive coordinator.

Follow colleges reporter Paul Myerberg on Twitter @PaulMyerberg

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football: Gus Malzahn to Terry Bowden, we rank coaching hires

Source link

0 notes

ciathyzareposts · 5 years

Text

The Final Word on Daniel Lawrence’s DND

The title shows that, just as with The Game of Dungeons, “DND” was just a file name, not the game name.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the “Data Driven Gamer,” it’s worth a visit. The author, Ahab, is still building his readership base, much like I was in 2011. He’s more expansive in his selection of games than I am, but his particular focus is to analyze the games’ quantitative elements, while still supplying a lot of commentary on the qualitative ones.

Ahab did a great job in the last couple of years analyzing The Dungeon and The Game of Dungeons, prompting me to go back and win those games. But those contributions pale in comparison to what he did last month. For the first time that I’m aware of, he figured out how to get a version of Daniel Lawrence’s DND operating on a VAX emulator. For decades, we’ve had to reconstruct this missing link between the PLATO Game of Dungeons and the commercial Telengard based on player memories, adaptations, and interpretations of source code. Ahab not only showed the game in action, but he won it and supplied a full set of maps (for one of the three dungeons) as part of the process. His material is key to understanding this particular, peculiar line of CRPGs. Among other things, the ability to actually play this game shows that only the file name was DND; the title was–copyrights be damned–Dungeons & Dragons.

Gameplay in the VMS/VAX DND. My graphics are all messed up because of a line feed issue that I can’t solve. The dungeon walls don’t really look this chaotic.

Untangling the history of this particular lineage has been difficult, largely because of horrendous misinformation, much of it perpetrated (or at least not corrected) by Lawrence himself, who died in 2010 at the age of 52. (Among other things, he explicitly designated this page, which is so hopelessly confused I don’t know where to begin, as the “official DND site.” The authors do deserve credit for aggregating and preserving important files.) To read some sites, Lawrence is the father of the entire CRPG line, having written the first DND as early as 1972–two years before tabletop Dungeons & Dragons! His game was so popular, some articles have alleged, that students at the University of Indiana decided to adapt it as The Game of Dungeons. (Of course, it was the other way around.) Even writers who haven’t so thoroughly confused the timeline have accepted Lawrence’s assertions that he wrote “his” DND entirely on his own, with no reference to any other game, despite that it clearly borrows elements from the PLATO Game of Dungeons and Lawrence went to a university (Purdue) connected to PLATO. In a 2007 interview with Matt Barton, he suggests that his “play testers” might have played The Game of Dungeons and brought ideas to him. To me, such a scenario doesn’t begin to explain the similarities between the games.

Daniel Lawrence in an undated photograph. Credit unknown.

The best truth that I can determine with the available evidence is that Lawrence wrote his first version of DND in 1976 or 1977, clearly after being exposed to The Game of Dungeons on PLATO. I’m inclined to think that 1977 is the more likely date, since DND is closer in similarity to Version 6 of The Game of Dungeons, which wasn’t released until 1977. Then again, elements of The Game Version 8 (1978) also seem to show up in Lawrence’s work, so it’s possible he went back to the well several times during the development of his adaptation. The existence of several mainframe versions would support this thesis.

As we’ll see, Lawrence made plenty of additions, and to recognize that he plagiarized from The Game is not to deny his own skill and innovations. His primary contribution was releasing the game to the wider world, first by writing a version for Purdue’s DEC RSTS/E system. (In Lawrence’s own words, the game was “the cause of more than one student dropping out” and “made me very unpopular with the computing staff at Purdue.”) Engineers from DEC maintaining Purdue’s system became familiar with the game and liked it so much that in 1979, they asked Lawrence to come to their Massachusetts headquarters and write a port for DEC’s PDP-10 mainframe running the TOPS-20 operating system. (There are hints within DEC documents that Lawrence may have been paid for this, and that DEC’s intention was to offer the game with its installations. The specific agreement between Lawrence and DEC has not come to light.) This version was subsequently disseminated in many locations where DECs were installed. The VMS/VAX version that Ahab got running seems to have been ported from this mainframe version.

By then, Lawrence had already been porting the game to the micro-computer. In 1978, he wrote a version for the Commodore PET that he titled Telengard, which had been the name of one of the explorable dungeons in DND. Representatives from Avalon Hill ran into Lawrence demoing the game at a convention in 1980 or 1981 and offered him a publishing deal, which ultimately saw PET, Commodore 64, Apple II, TRS-80, Atari 800, and MS-DOS releases starting in 1981 or 1982.

The title screen from the Commodore PET version of Telengard. The 1981 date seems unlikely as the actual release year.

(None of the histories of Lawrence or Telengard mention the specific convention at which this meeting occurred, but I found a likely session in the GenCon XIV program from August 1981. Unless Lawrence ran the same competition multiple years [I can’t find the previous year’s catalog], it seems unlikely that Telengard had a pre-1982 release date despite the copyright date on some versions of the game.)

In 1981, Lawrence ran a “contest” in which players competed for high scores or other status in some version of DND. Someone from Avalon Hill attended the session, and the result was the commercial Telengard.

From then on, Lawrence and Avalon Hill waged war on the ubiquitously-released free versions of the game, ordering their removal from every system on which they appeared. For its part, DEC acceded to legal threats from Avalon Hill, resulting in the modern difficulty reconstructing what those early versions looked like. You can read a long, fun e-mail chain here in which DEC employees try to argue law with their own legal department. Hilariously, various employees request assistance in finding the Orb throughout the thread while their exasperated bosses remind them that the game isn’t supposed to exist on any DEC machine anymore.

A DEC executive orders the deletion of DND from DEC machines.

If Lawrence was guilty of some disingenuous behavior in trying to quash free versions of a game he partly plagiarized, it came back to bite him in repeated plagiarisms of his versions. We’ve seen plenty of them on this blog, including the so-called “Heathkit DND” (in actuality, also titled Dungeons and Dragons) of 1981, R.O. Software’s DND (1984), and Thomas Hanlin’s Caverns of Zoarre (1984). There are other BBS and shareware versions of the game that we haven’t tried.

A DND “family tree.”

That’s the history. But what is Dungeons & Dragons? It’s a text-based game with ASCII graphics in which a single character navigates one of three 20-level dungeons in a quest to retrieve a magic orb from a dragon. The layout of the dungeon and the locations of many of the special encounters are fixed, but the locations of combats and miscellaneous treasure finds are so random that you could encounter a never-ending stream of them from the same dungeon square. Combats are with a small menagerie of enemies, each with different strengths and vulnerabilities to the game’s various spells. The character gains experience through both combat and treasure-finding, with miscellaneous encounters increasing and decreasing his attributes and providing him with magical gear. When he feels strong enough, he takes on the final dungeon level, recovers the orb, and–if he makes it back alive–gets his name on a leaderboard of “orb finders.”

As I mentioned, there are too many elements copied directly from The Game of Dungeons for it to be remotely possible that Lawrence never saw it. These include:

The basic approach to game mechanics and goals, including the existence of permadeath.

A character creation process that includes a “secret name” for each character, serving as a kind of password

The need for a “secret name” is drawn from The Game of Dungeons, but the full set of attributes, the choice of character classes, and the choice of dungeons is new to DND.

The number of dungeon levels.

A main quest to recover an orb.

Carrying treasure out of the dungeon converts it to experience points.

My character levels up from a treasure haul.

A list of successful characters called “finders.”

The existence of a transportation device, called “Excelsior,” that moves you among the levels.

Basic combat options of (F)ight, (C)ast, and (E)vade.

A small number of monsters who have numeric levels assigned.

Many of the magic items are identical. Items can be trapped (although Lawrence’s traps are more creative).

Treasure is found in both chests and random piles. Chests contain vastly more gold than the random piles.

Magic books that can raise or lower your attributes.

DND’s handling of chests and books is the same as The Game of Dungeons.

Pits that you can fall down, dumping you on lower levels.

Luckily, I spotted this one.

It’s also possible that Lawrence took a few elements from the earlier The Dungeon, including the organization of spells into a number of “slots” per level as well as some of the treasures you can find in the dungeon and their relative conversion to gold.

But Lawrence also added some new things to the Game of Dungeons template, some making it better, some making it poorer. These include:

DND has no graphics. Walls and corridors are ASCII characters and the main characters is represented as an X. The Game of Dungeons had graphics for geography, the PC, monsters, equipment, gold, and so forth.

Instead of just “gold,” the player finds a variety of different treasure types that are converted to gold.

DND dungeon levels are much larger.

The Excelsior transporter exists on every level in DND, not just the top one.

A full set of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons attributes. The Game of Dungeons just had strength, intelligence, and dexterity. DND adds constitution and charisma.

A DND “character sheet.”

While the character in Game was a multi-classed fighter/magic-user/cleric, DND has the player specify a choice of these classes. As such, combat is rebalanced so that you don’t need to cast particular spells to ensure victory, and a pure fighter has a shot at winning. Spells, which could reliably one-shot certain enemies in The Game, are significantly reduced in power. They’re also more in line with tabletop Dungeons and Dragons and, it must be said, a lot less silly than The Game.

There’s no distinction between experience and gold in DND, as there was in Game through Version 5. The Game also changed to a single experience pool starting in Version 6, so Lawrence may have been influenced by the later one.

DND offers three dungeons to explore–Telengard, Svhenk’s Lair, and Lamorte–each of which might contain the orb.

Game resolved combats all at once. DND shows round-for-round results.

DND’s approach is generally better, but sometimes you wish it would just hurry up and get it done.

DND completely randomizes the appearance of treasure. The Game “seeded” each level with gold and chests whenever you entered, and you could clear the level, but in DND, treasure has a chance of showing up in every square as you move to it, including those you’ve already explored.

DND adds more special encounters at fixed locations, including thrones, altars, fountains, dragons’ lairs, and doors with combination codes.

Special encounters with altars are a new element in DND.

Lawrence replaced the awkward “teleporters” with stairs that remain in a fixed location.

DND includes a greater variety of equipment, including magic weapons other than swords. The pluses go much higher, too. Where The Game capped at +3, DND allows higher than +20.

DND adds cute atmospheric messages as you explore. Examples: “A mutilated body lies on the floor nearby”; “‘Turn back!!!’ a voice screams”; “The room vibrates as if an army is passing by.” There’s even a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure and its hollow voice that says “PLUGH.”

Finally, it’s worth noting some of the changes between DND and Telengard:

Telengard has no main quest. The only objective is to get stronger and richer. For years, I thought this was a defining feature of the sub-genre, but it turns out that it’s actually quite rare. Most variants have some kind of main quest.

Telengard‘s has only one dungeon, randomly drawn every time you start a new game.

The appearance of thrones, fountains, altars, and other special features are completely randomized, just like monsters and miscellaneous treasure. A player can encounter everything that Telengard has to offer by passing time in a single square.

Telengard has graphics.

Telengard has an expanded selection of items, including potions and scrolls.

Telengard is a nicer-looking game, but the greater randomization creates a chaotic experience.

Only the last item is a clear “improvement.” Telengard is arguably a dumbing-down of gameplay in DND. The lack of any main quest is particularly notable, and one wonders why Lawrence or Avalon Hill made the decision to exclude one. Perhaps they thought the game had greater replayability if the only goal was to create a stronger character.

For all the ink writers like me have spent on Lawrence and his game, it arguably had the least impact of the major lineages that began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During its day, DND offered perhaps the best simulation of the mechanics of tabletop role-playing on a computer, but its arrival on the micro-computer scene was far too late to have any impact. By the time that Telengard was released, it had already been outclassed by Ultima and games in the Moria/Oubliette/Wizardry line. The direct influence of DND can only really be felt in its few clones, for which there was so small a market that they had to be released as shareware.

Gameplay from the Heathkit Dungeons and Dragons (1981).

Gameplay in R.O. Software’s DND (1984)

Gameplay in Caverns of Zoarre (1984)

There is one small exception, and to analyze it we must first note that DND did a reasonably good job anticipating the roguelike sub-genre. In fact, it’s hard not to call it a pre-Rogue “roguelike,” what with its random encounters, permadeath, and MacGuffin on the 20th floor. And yet it’s hard to detect any direct influence on Rogue. (To some extent, Rogue feels like a game created by someone who heard about DND but never played it.) To my knowledge, the developers of Rogue have never acknowledged any direct influence except Star Trek (1971), Colossal Cave Adventure (1976), and a general desire to emulate table-top role-playing.

However, I do think that someone on the NetHack development team was exposed to DND, or at least Telengard. I base this on the variety of special encounters that were introduced to the game at some point between Hack and NetHack 2.3e, including thrones that do different things when you sit on them and offer the ability to pry gems out of them; fountains that have a variety of effects; and altars that ask for money. Granted, thrones, fountains, and altars are fantasy staples that may have been introduced independently, but the specific way that you use them is so similar to DND that I think there must be a connection. It’s a minor legacy, but still worth acknowledging.

Sitting on thrones in NetHack has many of the same consequences as in DND.

Ahab was kind enough to send me the instructions I needed to emulate DND myself. I tried for a while, but I couldn’t solve an issue (involving line feeds) that created chaos out of the dungeon maps. (The solution he offers on his blog didn’t work for me despite us both having the same version of Windows.) Such a win would have been superfluous coming right on the heels of his own victory anyway. I may return to it at some point in the future, just for the statistic, but not soon.

This entry will serve as my final word on this line of games, which we’ve visited in bits and pieces since the first year of my blog. If any new information comes to light, I’ll include edits in this entry rather than writing anew. In the meantime, there are dozens of web pages and Wiki articles that I don’t imagine will be similarly corrected. Daniel Lawrence deserves credit for what he accomplished, but he is not the grandfather or even father of CRPGs.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-final-word-on-daniel-lawrences-dnd/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

0 notes