Notable Adaptations

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Let's hear it for adaptions of /tg/ related material into other media! They usually suck! Anyway, here are some of them, organized by line (and excluding spin-off books for sanity's sake):

(Before you ask: this is not approved media, as a lot of this is terrible. This is just stuff that's sufficiently /tg/ relevant that it might get brought up.)

Dungeons & Dragons

RPG Vidya

  • Gold Box games: The first adaption of D&D worthy of the name, the Gold Box games were essentially as much of D&D that could be fit into a single player CRPG at the time. Think "First person grid-based exploration plus top down, fairly good combat", and you have this series. Usually centered on the Forgotten Realms, although there was a trilogy of Dragonlance games.
  • Order of the Griffon: Where the Gold Box games took their rules from Ad&D 1e, Order took its rules (and setting) from BX D&D. Was released on the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 and was really good looking for its time and had almost as much depth as any one of the Gold Box games. Only major drawback was that music would cut out the moment anything on the battle screen happened.
  • Descent to Undermountain: A stillborn attempt to compete with Ultima Underworld using an engine meant for a fast-paced shooter. Not good.
  • Baldur's Gate: Need we say more?
  • Icewind Dale: A largely combat focused pair of games made on the Baldur's Gate engine featuring full party creation. Second one is based on a bizarre hybrid of the 2E and 3E rules.
  • Eye of the Beholder: First person dungeon crawl.
    • Dungeon Hack: Eye of the Beholder engine, turned into an early Roguelite.
  • Planescape: Torment: TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT PHILOSOPHY TEXT TEXT COMBAT TEXT TEXT PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY TEXT TEXT TEXT.
  • Neverwinter Nights: A horrible 3E based spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. It's played primarily for its expansion pack's campaigns, editor and multiplayer.
    • Neverwinter Nights 2: Another horrible game with good expansion packs, editor and multiplayer. The quality gap between the expansion packs and original game is even bigger than the original, with the first expansion being included in lists of the top 25 computer RPGs ever.
  • Temple of Elemental Evil: A very faithful adaption of the classic module using the 3rd edition rules with turn based. Incredibly buggy on release. Despite its age, it still has an extant modding community adding new options and attempting to port Icewind Dale to the engine (with a demo of the first act already released).
  • Tactics: An incredibly obscure but faithful adaption of 3rd edition rules that was released only for the PSP in very limited numbers and never released digitally. It's actually pretty good... for half the game. By the mid-point everything just kinda runs out: Maps are largely empty, you've seen all the enemy types 5 levels ago so they're only any kind of threat with sheer numbers, Psions literally have so few "options" they're forced to pick which order they get their "new" (really just improved versions of existing powers or spells) powers in, and Fighters run out of feats to take. Notable for exploration being turn based and being the only DnD game to actually bother implementing the lighting rules.

Non-RPG Vidya

  • Heroes of the Lance/Dragons of Flame: Pure shit.
  • Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Cloudy Mountain: 1982 Intellevision game, with all that implies. Not pure shit, but like a lot of games of the era, not worth playing today either.
  • Tower of Doom/Shadow over Mystara: A pair of very good side-scrolling beat-em-ups by Capcom. Re-released half a year shy of two decades later with Chronicles of Mystara.
  • Hillsfar: It's not actually all that D&D, but it was made by very early Westwood (the guys who later made Command and Conquer and Dune II), so there's that.
  • Dragonshard: An RTS set in Eberron sounds awesome right? Too bad it somehow manages to avoid being set in The Last War or even The Next War and is just a smaller scale conflict in Xen'drik, doesn't understand the setting and plays like ass.
  • Dragonstrike: On the PC, an okay but not good first-person dragonflight combat sim. On the NES, a very ordinary top-down shooter. Made by Westwood, and possibly the first and only example of a dragon air combat sim until the Playstation era.
  • Fantasy Empires: D&D as a war game. How original.
  • Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms: Yes, a D&D idle game. Reportedly, not terrible for an idle game.
  • Dark Alliance: An up and coming adaptation that we know next to nothing about besides a slightly nausea-inducing trailer. Reportedly a 4 person co-op action RPG a la Vermintide where you play as Drizzt and his buddies.

Das Schwarze Auge

The Dark Eye actually has a comparable amount of vidya to D&D. Problem is nobody in English speaking countries has ever heard of the RPG outside of a small number of RPG enthusiasts so the supertitle has always been dropped for English releases.

  • Realms of Arkania: This trilogy, like the Gold Box games, combines first person exploration with top down turn based combat. Considered classics of the genre. Realms of Arkania was also used as the supertitle of three DSA novels released in English near the same time, but calling the franchise that in the English speaking world never really caught on. Also has a terrible remake.
  • Drakensang
  • The River of Time: Had Drakensang, which it is a prequel to, grafted onto it as a super title so people would have some idea of what the hell it was.
  • Memoria: A... point and click adventure game. Surprisingly good and considered a classic of the genre, possibly the best post-2000 release.
  • Blackguards: Named for its all anti-hero party consisting of a minor noble's lazy, good for nothing, son/daughter framed for murder (you), an arsonist dwarf, a wisecracking escaped slave/ladysman who is also a capable mage, and a crackhead poacher. Almost purely combat, but quite good at that. Most maps have their unique design elements and objectives that keep things fresh. Don't play the sequel: It's crap.

Pathfinder

  • Pathfinder: Kingmaker: An RPG based on the Adventure Path of the same name. Surprisingly its a spiritual successor to the first Baldur's Gate, not its more famous sequel, by focusing on wilderness exploration and low-level content. After patches corrected the bug-fest it was on release, it's actually quite good except for the glaring flaw of using Baldur's Gate's wonky combat system, but this is corrected by a mod that adds the option to play with proper turn based combat. A sequel based on the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path (the one with writing by the Siege of Dragonspear author) has been confirmed to be in the works.

Other OGL based games

  • Knights of the Chalice: A dungeon crawler built on a stripped down version of the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons rules released under the Open Gaming License. Notable for being made by a single Frenchman who hates money (it was not released on Steam until 10 years after its original release) and the only game in existence besides the two Ultima 7s to use the bizarre prospective of those games. A sequel, with a normal prospective and more complete rules, is actually complete but Kickstarter'ed afterward to fund third party bug-testing and its expansion packs. Said Kickster was been continually postponed due to a series of competing ones that would dwarf it followed by a global pandemic before finally launching May 26 2020.
  • Solasta: Crown of the Magister: A dungeon crawler with focus on verticality and interactive environment. Notable for being the one game based on the 5th edition rules until Baldur's Gate 3 confirmed it was using them. Not officially out yet, but a free early demo with pregens is, and released before any 5E games were even announced to use that ruleset. Since most of the content in 5E is closed content, a large percent of in-game material is homebrew.
  • Realms Beyond: A 3.5 OGL based game built from the ruins of a game that was known as Chaos Chronicles before the developers were screwed by the publisher and was eventually rebooted as this for Kickstarter funding. Sold itself on being open world, with an extensive world map you can freely travel. Was supposed to have a combat demo released to backers January 2020, then Feburary 2020, then... eventually seeing a scope crept version released May of 2020.

World of Darkness

  • Kindred: The Embraced: 1996 Live action TV show. Much derided, lasted less than one season, not much more to say.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption: The other video game based on the world of darkness. Not great and plays loose with the lore, but playable and has some interesting multiplayer modes.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines: Once you get the bugs patched up by one of the many community patches, you'll find (mostly) an awesome RPG experience that has awesome game design (except for the last third of the game) and a good representation of the OWoD lore with good writing and voice acting to boot. Unfortunately marred by a rushed dev cycle which left the final game in a buggy and frustrating state, especially towards the end of the main story where the developers where forced to make purely combat-oriented levels just to bulk it out more. Seriously, if you're playing a stealth or diplomatic build in these sections, you're straight-up fucked. Sequel is coming in 2020 which will hopefully be worthwhile.
  • Hunter: The Reckoning, Wayward, and Redeemer: A trilogy of console hack and slash games. Were nothing particularily interesting, except the last two games were exclusive to the PS2 and Xbox respectively.

Warhammer Fantasy

Warhammer 40k

  • Final Liberation, Chaos Gate, & Rites of War: Three old-timey turn-based strategy games. Flawed and merciless, but still with memorable facets here and there. The first involves freeing a world from an Ork Waaagh, the second is Ultramarines fighting Word Bearers, and the third is the Eldar trying to clean out a Maiden World from all the threats.
  • Space Hulk: There have been several adaptations of this classic board game, even unofficial ones and ones that aren't very board-gamey.
  • Fire Warrior: Mediocre FPS where you play as a Fire Warrior who gets quickly way out of his depth. Best known for being a really early take on the then-newborn Tau and the protagonist, who might have totally become canon. Twice.
  • Dawn of War: Classic RTS franchise that codified many peoples' interest in the franchise with good gameplay and memorable characters. Oh, and memes.
  • Space Marine: Gameplay is best described as "Gears of Warhammer".
  • Space Hulk: Deathwing: A Left 4 Dead style adaptation of the classic Space Hulk. Very rough at first, but got better over time.
  • Battlefleet Gothic: Armada & Armada II: An adaptation of Battlefleet Gothic; the sequel is notable for being one of the few games set post-Cicatrix Maledictum.
  • Inquisitor - Martyr: An Action RPG where you make your own Inquisitor to investigate an ancient legacy and purge heretics.
  • Eternal Crusade: A PlanetSide style MMOFPS that had ambitions of grand campaigns between Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks (with NPC Tyranids thrown in the mix), but the playerbase quickly died due to troubled development and failing to deliver on a comparable experience to PlanetSide.
  • Gladius - Relics of War: Full 4X Strategy game with a 4-way war.
  • Mechanicus: An X-Com style strategy game involving all the Mechanicus stuff as you become a Magos tasked to explore a Necron Pyramid.

Yu-Gi-Oh

Yu-Gi-Oh has over 60 video games, which is slightly more than the number of RPGs based on D&D (though D&D still wins with non-RPGs included). This number is largely due to a lot of early games being tweaked versions of the previous release with the year's new cards. Many games eschew the real card game's rules and make up their own interpretation of how the duels in the anime/manga are supposed to work.

  • Stairway to the Destined Duel: The last card game in the OG era that's actually following the rules of the real card game. The player wanders around Battle City beating randomly picked opponents in duels to improve their deck. Exemplified the early era where every deck was full of board wipes that were easy to pull off and only two types of deck existed, both with heavy card overlap: Beatdown decks that rushed to get a strong monster out (Either tributing for Summoned Skull, or using Cyber-Stein, since it wasn't a rare promo in this game, to bring out some big fusion monster like Blue-eyes Ultimate Dragon) and buff it to reduce the opponent's life points to zero, and Exodia decks which stalled till they drew Exodia.
  • Tag Force: A series of 7 PSP games (with one rereleased on PS2) that focused primarily on tag duels, with the player able to build relations with the character they choose as their partner (with romantic tones for the females). The series, especially the early ones, are notorious for how blatantly the AI cheats. The cards an enemy has in their hand or facedown aren't actually locked to any card, but instead can become any legal(ish) option in their deck. This cheating is so bad that the earlier incarnations cards returned to the hand or flipped upsidedown could immediately become completely different cards. The first 3 games are based on the GX era, the next trilogy on the 5Ds era, and the final game including characters from all five eras of anime (six counting the one that wasn't about children's card games) then in existence.
  • World Championship 2009-2011 Trilogy (Stardust Accelerator, Reverse of Arcadia, and Over the Nexus): A trilogy of 5D based games on the DS. Notably take the time to make an original story instead of just copying the anime's (for the most part anyways, some events overlap very heavily with the anime's), with the third game taking a random filler arc and using it to form the main character's hometown and personal quest. All of this is presented on a full 3D map that's full of side-content, including an extensive post-game, especially in the later games. Also has a tiny racing minigame of acceptable quality, since it is Card Games on Motorcycles.

MMORPGs

Because reasons, we'll cover MMORPGs separately.

  • Champions Online: Champions setting MMORPG, by the guys what did "City of Heroes"
  • Dungeons & Dragons Online: Not great MMORPG by the guys what did "Asheron's Call", set in Eberron.
  • Neverwinter: 4e DnD Forgotten Realms MMORPG, by the guys what did "City of Heroes" and "Champions Online".
  • Vampire: The Masquerade: Never released, but important to explaining the history of many White Wolf games. Was going to be made by the guys what did "EVE Online".
  • Warhammer Online: See article; by the guys what did "Dark Age of Camelot".
  • Magic: Legends: An up and coming Magic: The Gathering ARPG Diablo-clone made by the guys what did Neverwinter above. Details are scarce and will be compiled into their own page.

Comic Books (and Manga)

Comic books are a thing. Again, because reasons, we'll cover them separately. Among the more notable /tg/ stuff to have comics are:

  • Dungeons and Dragons
  • Pathfinder
  • Warhammer: Between Webcomics and the official comics of Inferno! Magazine and others, there is a good smattering of comics covering all of Games Workshop's IPs. Of particular interest here are the legendary Deff Skwadron and The Redeemer comics.
  • World of Darkness

One Offs & Miscellany

There have been plenty of Vidya versions of board games. The Eurogames and higher quality Ameritrash (such as Talisman) adaptions are probably worth talking about; Monopoly adaption #730,186,787,761,250 probably isn't. For those, see List of Vidya Board Games.

  • Battleship: Yes, there was a 2012 film based on that old "A7" "Miss" "E4" "You sunk my destroyer" game. Yes, it was little more than a punchline made real. There's a reason satire is probably only for the experts, kids.
  • Clue had a pretty good film version in 1985.
  • Starfleet Command I and II were mostly direct adaptions of Star Fleet Battles, only in real-time rather then being turn based. Fairly good, for what they were. III was neither an SFB adaption, nor any good.
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