In the mid '90s, TSR saw its market-share being threatened not only by
competing role-playing games, but also by video-games. As computer
processors became more powerful, video-games became both flashier and
capable of presenting deeper and more impressive quests and stories,
and - given the difficulties of getting together a group of players -
many people preferred the simplicity of the computer version.
TSR tried to fight this trend by adding a bit of multimedia to their
own games: namely, an AudioCD that had provided music, sound-effects
and voice-acting. These CDs came bundled with special adventures and
the idea was that at certain times during the adventure (indicated in
the published material) the DM would play a specific track, adding
that extra ambience and mood. It also had the added advantage in that
it offered novice players (whom TSR was heavily courting at the time)
an example as how to role-play
Needless to say, it didn't really work all that well. Even at its
best, the voice-acting tended to make people laugh; to be fair, the
actors weren't that horrid but their lines were so overwrought that it
came off as hammy. The sound-effects were good, but tended to distract
more than add to the immersiveness (especially since the DM had to
stop the game, play the effect, stop the CD, and then go back to
DMing). The music wasn't bad, but there wasn't enough of it and didn't
lend itself well to looping in the background. Most DMs listened to
the CD once and didn't use it in their adventures at all; the few who
did rarely used the CDs more than once. Meanwhile, the over-the-top
voice-acting just made D&D seem even nerdier and weirder than it
already did, and novice gamers avoided the genre all the more.
The multimedia gimmick died a quick and merciful death.
Nontheless, TSR managed to release a fair number of adventures and
accessories utilizing the mechanic. These included the "First Quest"
box set (and its "Introduction to AD&D" reprint), which provided the
rules and setting in a newbie-friendly way. These were followed by a
number of low-level, novice-oriented adventures placed in the
"Mystara" setting (essentially the "Known World" setting of Basic D&D
updated to use AD&D rules). The collection also included two boxes of
source-material for the "Red Steel" setting, a Planescape accessory
and a Ravenloft adventure.
The "First Quest" and "Introduction to AD&D" box-sets and CDs have
already been posted. Everything else will follow shortly. All books
are cleaned up scans, with full OCR, bookmarks and re-stitched maps.
They are all complete sets, with one exception. All will have the
audio-CDs posted seperately; the tracks of the CDs are in MP3 format
and are archived in .Zip format.
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