return of CRPG migration studies

One of the weird thing about playing dungeony dragony computer games from the 80's is the existence of a whole network of games by disparate designers and publishers that allowed you to import characters from other games. My original attempt to map out this phenomenon included 10 different games. But based on the comments to that post and further research, I've added a few more games:

A red arrow indicates a relationship with the whole trilogy, e.g. Ultima III characters can be ported into any Bard's Tale.

The major end states of these progressions are Deathlord (an Oriental Adventures-style adventure), Legend of Faerghail, Dragon Wars, and, inexplicably enough, the sci-fi adventure Centauri Alliance. Adventurers from up to ten different games could end up travelling to the stars! Not all at the same time, though. Not every version of every game (C64, Apple, PC, etc.) supported the same level of character importation. Also, you can't have more than 8 characters in your Centauri Alliance party.

I thought it might be amusing to look at how the different games on my chart above treat characters, in terms of party size, classes, races, and ability score categories. Here's what I found out about this strange interconnected array of games.

Most of these games feature parties of no more than 6 PCs. Ultima IV and Centauri Alliance allow 8, though the latter recommends you leave at least one slot in the party empty for an NPC to join. The Bard's Tale games have a seventh slot that can't be filled with PCs. Two of the games, Ultime III and Dragon Wars, have parties of only 4 characters.

Two of the games above, Cantauri Alliance and Dragon Wars, seem to use skill systems instead of class systems. All the others have between six (Might & Magic I) and an astonishing eighteen classes (Deathlord). All these games feature a Fighter class, but it might be named Warrior, Knight, Senshi, as well as a Wizard/Mage/Magician/Sorcerer/Mahotsukai. With the exception of Ultima IV, there's a Thief/Rogue/Robber/Yakuza available as well. Although most games have Cleric/Priest/Healer/Shisai class, the Bard's Tale uses the Conjuror, which always struck me more as a magic-user class with cleric-type spells. I was suprised to find equivalents to Ultima IV's working stiff classes, the Tinker and Shepherd: the Blacksmith of Legend of Faerghail and the Kosaku (peasant) of Deathlord.

Ultima IV and Dragon Wars have humans as the only race available to PCs. Centauri Alliance has five sci-fi alien races. But most of the games have elves, dwarfs, halfings/hobbits (bobbits in Ultima III), and gnomes. Half-orcs and half-elves are common, but not ubiquitous. (Legend of Faerghail smooshes the latter two races into the single dubious  category Mixed.) Deathlord has all of these but half-orcs, renaming all of them except the Gnomes for some reason, and adding Trolls and Ogres into the mix as well. The Phantasie series allows you to choose among an array of normal PC races or to assign a random monster race to the character you just rolled. You might get a gronk like an Ogre, Troll, or Minotaur. Or you might get a pixie or a kobold or something in between. And then there's the Fuzzies. If Ultima III hadn't come out before Gremlins was released to movie theatres, I would have assumed they were based on Gizmo the Mogwai, because they look like furry little pals:

Every game in this array has a Strength stat, though Might & Magic calls it Might. (Sadly, M&M does not have a corresponding Magic stat.) All of them has an Intelligence/IQ/Intellect score. Nearly all have a Dexterity or Agility stat, but Might & Magic splits that score into Speed and Accuracy. Wisdom/Piety/Spirit is less common, with Charisma and Constitution type scores even rarer. Meanwhile Luck is a stat in Bard's Tale, Might & Magic, and Wizardy. Dragon Wars and Deathlord both have a Power stat. And someone behind Deathlord must have been familiar with Runequest, as it has a Size stat as well. 

So what the point of all of this? Heck if I know. I just like contemplating how, if you played your cards right, a character you made in 1981 for Wizardry could end up spending 1985 and 1986 in the worlds of Bard's Tale I and II. Maybe along the way they team up with your four PCs from Ultima III. Will they all go on to Faerghail? Will some of them go fight the Dragon Wars? Just thinking about those possibilities gives me good time feelings.

But I do think there's a seed of an idea here that could be used in tabletop RPG gaming. Each rectangle on my chart above represents a constellation of places and events. You could build a lifepath system for experienced PCs using a flowchart made in a similar fashion. Each stop on the flowchart would then come with some sort of die chart that would tell you what happened to the PC.