Incline AD&D 2.0 core rulebooks program

[FriendlyMerchant]

I found a torrent of the old D&D rulebook program from TSR on archive

https://archive.org/details/adndcore2rules

It's a pretty interesting program. It has character creators, a map editor, and some other dm tools. It works even in newer windows. I even made a character in it for fun.

Character sheet is 5 pages with everything. The Agriculture is for Turnip farming of course... What kind of Gnome doesn't have any skills in Turnip farming? A Griffin disguised as a Gnome of course! Ever heard of the great Turnip famine of 792? Before that year, the Gnomish plantation owners were quite prosperous with large plantations with Turnips that sprouted up every day. You should've seen them, you couldn't walk forward a centimeter before accidentally stepping on a large juicy turnip. It wouldn't last of course. Griffins hate Gnomes with a vengeance and being unable to compete fairly against Gnomish ingenuity decided to disguise themselves as destitute Deep Gnomes looking for the opportunity to work for low wages. Out-competing Orc slaves in the cost efficiency, they were able to replace them all overnight. Of course, it was a mistake since they were able to destroy the plantations. Was it intentional? No. Griffins are incompetent when it comes to Sabotage and ended up trying to grow turnips instead. Unfortunately they're even worse at growing Turnips. And that's why I only use illegally acquired trained monkeys on my Turnip plantation.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I found a torrent of the old D&D rulebook program from TSR on archive

https://archive.org/details/adndcore2rules

It's a pretty interesting program. It has character creators, a map editor, and some other dm tools. It works even in newer windows. I even made a character in it for fun.

Character sheet is 5 pages with everything. The Agriculture is for Turnip farming of course... What kind of Gnome doesn't have any skills in Turnip farming? A Griffin disguised as a Gnome of course! Ever heard of the great Turnip famine of 792? Before that year, the Gnomish plantation owners were quite prosperous with large plantations with Turnips that sprouted up every day. You should've seen them, you couldn't walk forward a centimeter before accidentally stepping on a large juicy turnip. It wouldn't last of course. Griffins hate Gnomes with a vengeance and being unable to compete fairly against Gnomish ingenuity decided to disguise themselves as destitute Deep Gnomes looking for the opportunity to work for low wages. Out-competing Orc slaves in the cost efficiency, they were able to replace them all overnight. Of course, it was a mistake since they were able to destroy the plantations. Was it intentional? No. Griffins are incompetent when it comes to Sabotage and ended up trying to grow turnips instead. Unfortunately they're even worse at growing Turnips. And that's why I only use illegally acquired trained monkeys on my Turnip plantation.

Neat. Thanks

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

There's also an expansion disc that doesn't seem to be included here.
Plus, someone made a patch for them here to fix some errors(?) in the books, but I haven't tried it:
https://github.com/Alby1987/AD-DCoreRule2.0Errata

Also, if the installer doesn't appear to start on Windows 10 after 30 seconds or more, ctrl+alt+del > details > analyze wait chain and close the offending program. Seems to happen with older 32-bit installers.

 

[JamesDixon]

To get AD&D Core Rules Expansion 2.0 to work on Windows 10 right click on the desktop icon then go to Compatibility. Check the box for Run this program in compatibility mode for: and choose Windows XP Service Pack 3. Check the box for Run this program as an administrator.

I would highly recommend people use those settings for everything when you install.

Link to Core Rules 2.0 Expansion Patch 5

I have the other two hosted as well. If you need a copy just send me a private message.

 

[JamesDixon]

I found this gem on the Wayback Machine. It's the free addition to the Expansion that is the Complete Book of Necromancers.

This is the archive of DarkWhite's page that has more downloads.

Evermore Entertainment's archived web page from April 7, 2003.

 

[agris]

Nice find FM! This image really makes me think of the pre-rendered scenes used in OG BG1. I don't know how familiar you are with Baldur's Gate, but it has an excellent interface and prominently featured rendered scenes similar to the one I've quoted above, although with more detail.

It may be an artifact of the technology at the time that Bioware's scenes have such a similar aesthetic, but given Interplay's relationship with TSR I would be shocked if they did not (a) have this CD and were intimately familiar with the content and (b) drew inspiration from the scenes such as the above. I wonder if there's more in the CD.

Baldur's Gate 1 pre-rendered screens

Unfortunately I couldn't find many with an image search, but the main menu background and the various chapter transition screens, combined with the credits screen all show these type of images.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Nice find FM! This image really makes me think of the pre-rendered scenes used in OG BG1. I don't know how familiar you are with Baldur's Gate, but it has an excellent interface and prominently featured rendered scenes similar to the one I've quoted above, although with more detail.

It may be an artifact of the technology at the time that Bioware's scenes have such a similar aesthetic, but given Interplay's relationship with TSR I would be shocked if they did not (a) have this CD and were intimately familiar with the content and (b) drew inspiration from the scenes such as the above. I wonder if there's more in the CD.

Baldur's Gate 1 pre-rendered screens

Unfortunately I couldn't find many with an image search, but the main menu background and the various chapter transition screens, combined with the credits screen all show these type of images.

There is more in the CD. When you finish making a character, there's a "town."

It kinda reminds me of AoE2's menu

Spoiler

and there's some of the textures that come with the map maker. Here's some of the overland map textures

The other two sets are the dungeon and city object map makers. There's supposed to be a "campaign mapper" but it doesn't look like it's working. It's probably related to some read only settings.

 

[JamesDixon]

The other two sets are the dungeon and city object map makers. There's supposed to be a "campaign mapper" but it doesn't look like it's working. It's probably related to some read only settings.

It works for me. Did you install your game using the following instructions?

To get AD&D Core Rules Expansion 2.0 to work on Windows 10 right click on the desktop icon then go to Compatibility. Check the box for Run this program in compatibility mode for: and choose Windows XP Service Pack 3. Check the box for Run this program as an administrator.

Can someone please post this up for him since he's got me ignored?

Campaign Mapper and Map Maker are made by ProFantasy. They do the Campaign Cartographer series with those two being early versions.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

To get AD&D Core Rules Expansion 2.0 to work on Windows 10 right click on the desktop icon then go to Compatibility. Check the box for Run this program in compatibility mode for: and choose Windows XP Service Pack 3. Check the box for Run this program as an administrator.

Works for me even without that. Depends on what error he has exactly.

Can someone please post this up for him since he's got me ignored?

He's probably checking the ignored comments anyway like all ignore spammers do. It's just he can't respond without losing face. As if anyone cares.

 

[JamesDixon]

Works for me even without that. Depends on what error he has exactly.

Did you get the expansion to work for you?

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Works for me even without that. Depends on what error he has exactly.

Did you get the expansion to work for you?

Yep. It all works fine on Windows 10 for me. Including CM. The help menus don't work, but I think I recall seeing a fix for that somewhere. Not sure.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Codex, today I find myself overwhelmingly nostalgic for good old AD&D 2.0 sourcebooks.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the older I get the more I realize there was a reason things were the way they were

 

[Crispy]

Name: David Lebowitz

Gender: Female

 

[Rincewind]

It may be an artifact of the technology at the time that Bioware's scenes have such a similar aesthetic, but given Interplay's relationship with TSR I would be shocked if they did not (a) have this CD and were intimately familiar with the content and (b) drew inspiration from the scenes such as the above. I wonder if there's more in the CD.

One can see all the hallmarks of cost-efficient 3D renderings typical to the late 90s on these images. These are relatively low-poly models, and they did not spend much time on texturing and lighting. It looks okay and serves the purpose, but it's a bit workmanlike. It was possible to achieve *far* better results and much higher levels of realism in the second half of the 90s already on commodity hardware, but it required a lot of time and effort.

Ultimately, cost had always been a consideration during game development, and it shows in these images. So it's less of an artifact of technology — more the results of commercial constraints.

Sources: The output of some friends who achieved far better results in 3D Studio Max around the mid-90s and had won pretty much all demoscene competitions in the 3D/ray-tracing category. But it was a lot of work, spending months on a single image. You just cannot do that in a commercial context. Similarly, many demoscene productions feature far better pixel art than most (but not all) commercial games. But those guys did the art in their spare time, spending 50-100 hours on a single still image, free of commercial constraints.

 

[agris]

To get AD&D Core Rules Expansion 2.0 to work on Windows 10 right click on the desktop icon then go to Compatibility. Check the box for Run this program in compatibility mode for: and choose Windows XP Service Pack 3. Check the box for Run this program as an administrator.

I would highly recommend people use those settings for everything when you install.

Link to Core Rules 2.0 Expansion Patch 5

I have the other two hosted as well. If you need a copy just send me a private message.

Can you re-host the core rules expansion disc and the latest patch?

 

[Lunchrat]

Can someone give me a step by step on getting this to work properly? I got it to run once, and thereafter get a “No cd in drive /H” error. In Windows 10. Tried compatibility modes.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Can someone give me a step by step on getting this to work properly? I got it to run once, and thereafter get a “No cd in drive /H” error. In Windows 10. Tried compatibility modes.

Short story is you gots to mount the goods on a virtual CD too.