The influence of Dungeon and Dragons and of Final Fantasy

The Wolfpack · Post by **The Wolfpack** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:56 am

When I was growing up, My lego castle theme was heavily influence by the game Final Fantasy and Dungeon and Dragons. Both games helped break up those boring school days and more importantly got me more serious into the Lego Castle Theme than the other themes. Other games that also influenced me were Heroes of might and magic, Legend of Zelda, Ages of the Empires and other castle games. Leave a post in case I left a castle game out or comment on how these games influenced you.

Glencaer · Post by **Glencaer** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 1:29 pm

When it comes to LEGO Castle - my main inspiration is other people's MOCs - and secondarily real life castles/medieval structures.

However, I am a BIG fan of the Legend of Zelda series of games, and enjoy playing any other medieval video game.

A current project I'm not working on but would love to, is a minifig scale replica of Zelda cities, like Kakariko from Ocarina of Time, Windfall island from Windwaker, and Clock Town from Majora's Mask. I'm also working on my rendition of the minifig Link and Zelda (also other characters, like Ganon/Ganondorf, Impa, the seven Sages from Ocarina, the characters from Majora, and from Windwaker).

-lenstu

Post by **Bruce N H** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 7:45 pm

Wolfpack,

Do you use minifigs to play D&D the way many people use little painted pewter figures?

I never really drew inspiration from these games. Most of my inspiration comes from books (mostly Tolkien, also other fantasy works).

Bruce

wlister · Post by **wlister** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 9:51 am

D & D has had some influence on some of my character designs, but Final Fantasy was after my time. D & D was around when I was a kid and the characters in those games already fit into the fantasy world Tolkien had given us. Final Fantasy I was not even aware of until FF7 and those characters never said castle to me. Zelda was great and an easy mod to a forestmen figure. The green torso from 6054 made a great Link. I used white arms and white legs and voila there was Link. I actually put that fig together back in the days of the Nintendo when the Zelda cartrige was chrome gold. I have now added a Malfoy head and the round Shield from the Scorpion palace to approximate the shield Link has. It works well enough and is made from official parts only for the purists out there. I will post a pic in a few days.

Jojo · Post by **Jojo** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 4:06 pm

Hello!

I never played (A)D&D or similar RPGs myself, but I still can understand that one draws some inspiration from it. I was inspired by The Secret of Monkey Island™ as for my Pirate creations,and by many books and movies for Castle creations. For example Erol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood, Kevin Costner's King of Thieves, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and so on. This is why I like the "British" middle ages almost better than the "German" :-)
Of course the Name of the Rose is a great source, too (Book and movie).

Bye
Jojo

The Wolfpack · Post by **The Wolfpack** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:12 pm

I was inspired by The Secret of Monkey Island™ as for my Pirate creations,and by many books and movies for Castle creations. For example Erol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood, Kevin Costner's King of Thieves, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and so on.

I absolutely forgot about the influence on books on lego castle. Thanks Jojo for bringing up this very important topic. Books have also influenced me as well. My greatest influence is The Holy Roman Empire by James Bryce. It's a great book for those who enjoy German history but I also agree with Jojo that British history is much better especially since they had constant rivalries with the Franks/French and the Celts.

Do you use minifigs to play D&D the way many people use little painted pewter figures?

Sorry about the mixup, Bruce. What I meant to say that the video game for D+D was one of my influences and not the actual game. My lego collection is strictly for display only. And sadly, I only have time to marvel at the great MOCs at this excellent website and briefly seach Ebay for a lego item or two. Other than that, I am lego deprived

.

LEGOFREAK · Post by **LEGOFREAK** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:07 am

lego collection for display only...
I..I.. understand the words individually, but together they make no sense...
I..I.. think I will go lie down...

boses · Post by **boses** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:00 pm

When I was 10 or 11 I purchased a board game called "Hero Quest"

in the game one player designs a playing field and the other players

choose characters from the typical archetypes "Dwarf,Elf,Wizard and

Barbarian" if I remember correctly....I spent a couple of days painting the

figures,that were roughly the size of a LEGO minifig,and set out to build the

ultimate dungeon....as it turned out I never really played the game that

much,but it did serve as inspiration in both storytelling and character

design....Years later I acquired several of the classic strategy

games,nearly Mint-In-Box, namely Shogun, Axis and Allies,and a Roman

game I believe was called Conquest of the Empire....I then set out to build

the perfect war game by combining all of the elements..for the

playing field I considered using a folding cutting board, the

kind that is covered by a 1" grid and is used in sewing..the grid allowed for

easy measurements of weapons and troop movements......but I never

completed the game, Lego was always my true love,and I found it far

more interesting and fulfilling to assemble my own custom creatures and

heroes, and I recommend that any one who hasn't tried yet,to do the

same....

The Hordesman · Post by **The Hordesman** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:42 pm

Ive never wanted to have anything to do with FF because it has totally messed up what many thinks of norse mythology.

My source of inspiration are real castles, and mythology. I dont read much fantasy since its pretty much the same (princesses, warrioresses, magic spheres, dragons, wizards, goblins, knights... you know). Character designs and the alike is drawn from anime, well, if you have seen my characters, Damarus and Daiken, you should know this very well.

I forgot to mention, when designing armies, I usually look at warhammer or other wargame figs, other times I just make them up in my head. Warcraft can be somewhat inspiring too.

TheOrk · Post by **TheOrk** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 8:46 pm

I do like playing Final Fantasy but LEGO wise it didn't do anything for me. The only video game that really gave me inspiration was the game King's Field 2. It had a bunch of really cool swords that I tried to make with Lego.

Books and movies like Brave Heart and Robin Hood are the things I've gotten most of my inspiration from.

eNiGMa · Post by **eNiGMa** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:51 pm

Final Fantasy always helps me with my castle MOCs. I'm not too fond of the more recent games (from 8 up), but every game through 7 has provided very detailed examples of airships, creatures, cities, etc. For me, the fun is in trying to recreate something from a game, then changing some things to fit my own style.

boses · Post by **boses** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 9:56 pm

Wolfpack---

did you ever play an NES game called The Bard's Tale?? Or perhaps

Swords and Serpents??And don't forget the Shadowgate game!!The NES had

many decent and even great games, my Action-RPG favorite is probably a

toss up between Chrystalis , The Legend of Zelda, or The Guardian Legend....

Post by **Formendacil** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:23 pm

boses wrote:Wolfpack---

did you ever play an NES game called The Bard's Tale?? Or perhaps Swords and Serpents??And don't forget the Shadowgate game!!The NES had many decent and even great games, my Action-RPG favorite is probably a toss up between Chrystalis , The Legend of Zelda, or The Guardian Legend....

If you look at Wolfpack's stats, he hasn't posted since October 2003, a year and a half ago, so I rather doubt that he's going to reply.

As to the main discussion, I really have nothing to add, having never played any FF, D&D, or anything similar, or any castle-ly related games other than LEGO itself.

And actually going around with toy swords chopping up the enemies of infamy!

TwoTonic Knight · Post by **TwoTonic Knight** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:54 am

boses wrote:Wolfpack---

did you ever play an NES game called The Bard's Tale?? Or perhaps

Swords and Serpents??And don't forget the Shadowgate game!!The NES had

many decent and even great games, my Action-RPG favorite is probably a

toss up between Chrystalis , The Legend of Zelda, or The Guardian Legend....

What affect did Bard's Tale, Swords and Serpents, and Heroes of Might and Magic have on my life?

They put food on the table!

D&D got me a job, indirectly.

Not sure what any of that has to do with LEGO, though...

Flail · Post by **Flail** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:35 pm

Bruce N H wrote:Do you use minifigs to play D&D the way many people use little painted pewter figures?

I know your question wasn't directed at me, but many years ago my friend and I used minifigs as miniatures. In fact, we played a (very) simplified version of D&D. Basically, we just used dice and our knowledge of the game system but without the books or specific rules. The only thing we recorded were a characters stats and HP's.

We often played space senarios and lego was great because damage was visable, we didn't have to record it. When a vehicle was damaged, you simply removed some bricks or cracked it in parts. I have to say though, after a big battle it made for a Megablocks of a cleanup!

One other thing, D&D really destroyed my ability to play as most children play. I was introduce to the game when I was 9 or 10. Before D&D, my friend and I would play like, "Okay, the evil monster breathes fire!" "Let's go guys" "Ready the lasers, Fire!" "Oh no, they missed!" ect. There was sort of mutual agreement on what was happening and action just sort of happened. After D&D, everything was dependent on the almighty die. One of us had to be the "Game Master" and the other the "Player character" There was no more mutual agreement as to what was happening - every probability was decided by a dice. Once we learned this structure there was no going back to the simpler way of play. The beautiful part about using the D&D structure was where most kiids stop "playing" with lego by the early to mid teens, my friend and I "played" well into our 20's.