地牢任务：阿帕莎神庙 Dunjonquest: Temple of Apsha p.42

我深受龙与地下城 世界的影响，一切可以扔骰子、查规则、算点数、查结果，然后描述结果的都是极其美妙的。而现在地下城领主们也可以加入到游戏中来了，而不单是在一旁协调玩家。这真的特别棒，就算图像分辨率当时只有 40x40，顶多底下再加上 4 行叙述文字。呃，这对玩过《光环》（Halo）的人来说真的很难想象…

I had come from the paper Dungeons & Dragons world and anything that would roll the dice, keep track of the rules, do the maths, tally the results, and describe the results was totally awesome. The dungeon master could now play, rather than just moderate. This was pretty cool, even if the graphics resolution was 40x40 pixels, with 4 lines of text below. Ugh. Hard to believe after playing Halo...

Robert Clardy,
地牢战役开发者

Robert Clardy,
Dungeon Campaign's creator

完成简单但乐趣十足的《地牢战役》之后，罗伯特·克拉迪（Robert Clardy）很快又完成了其他三部作品，持续拓展作品的边界。

1979 年发布的《荒野战役（Wilderness Campaign）》是一款更加野心勃勃的 RPG。游戏中，你会探索更广阔的野外地域，与敌人战斗，在废墟中搜刮宝物，雇佣人手，在村镇中购买装备——所有这一切努力都是为了跨越地图，抵达城堡，击败邪恶的死灵法师。

战斗依然基于小队成员数量，但你现在可以招募上百位雇佣兵，还可以购买更好的装备。有些装备对特殊敌人有额外效果，比如银匕首对狼人就会有奇效。还有的装备能帮助队伍穿越复杂糟糕的地形，比方说，翻山越岭需要用到绳索，丛林地带需要用到砍刀。

他的下一款作品是 1980 年发布的《奥德赛：完全冒险》（即 Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure，这里的 Apventure 是一个文字游戏，由 Apple 和 Adventure 组合出的自造词）。游戏的规格做得更大了，但内容划分成了多个部分。

After the simple yet satisfying fun of Dungeon Campaign, Robert Clardy would quickly produce three more games, constantly pushing the boundaries.

Released in 1979, Wilderness Campaign is a much more ambitious RPG. Here you explore a large outdoor area, fighting enemies and exploring ruins in search of treasure, then hiring more troops and buying equipment in villages – all in order to cross the map, reach the castle and defeat the evil necromancer.

Combat is still based around the number of party members, but now you can hire hundreds of mercenaries and buy better equipment. Some offer bonuses against special enemies, such as silver daggers against werewolves, while others are used when crossing rough terrain – a mountain might require a rope, while a jungle area might require a machete.

The game was followed by Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure (a play on Apple and Adventure), released in 1980. Even larger in scope, it's divided into segments.

一开始，你会在岛屿上搜集资源，玩法类似《荒野战役》。之后，你会买下一条船，扬帆远航。你会和怪物战斗，忍受着饥饿与疾病，寻找一个魔法球。找到它之后，你会踏上寻找城堡的旅途，那里关押着一个强大的巫师，你需要解决了一系列的文字谜题挑战来解救他。

罗伯特·克拉迪（Robert Clardy）的第四款游戏《亚特兰迪斯冒险》（Apventure to Atlantis）发布于 1982 年，剧情承接前作，但玩法更像是一款冒险游戏，不是太专注于玩家的角色数值，而是包含了一系列需要通过文字指令来解决的谜题。玩家扮演的角色在本作中成为了城堡的新任领主，需要抵御来自亚特兰迪斯的入侵者，并想方设法一劳永逸地解决危机。

将近 40 年后，再来审视这些游戏，会觉得它们还很原始，玩起来也不太像是如今的 RPG 。但是，这也正是它们的魅力所在—— 它们丝毫不受类型惯例的约束，尽情演绎自己想要表达的传奇冒险，融入创作者能够想象到的各种新奇机制。计算机成为了地下城领主（Dungeon Master）的工具。

First you explore an island to gather resources, much like Wilderness Campaign. Then you purchase a boat and sail across the sea, battling monsters, hunger and diseases in search of a magical orb. After finding it, you travel to the castle of a mighty wizard, solving a series of text-based challenges in order to rescue him.

Robert Clardy's fourth game, Apventure to Atlantis (1982), continues where the previous one ended, but plays more like an adventure game, with less focus on stats and several puzzles that must be solved via a textparser. Now playing as the new lord of the castle, you must defend yourself against invaders from Atlantis and find a way to stop them once and for all.

Almost 40 years later, these games look pre-historic and play nothing like what we now call RPGs. But that's exactly their appeal – unshackled by genre conventions, they tell whatever epic adventure they wish to tell, using whichever novel mechanics their creator had imagined. The computer is a tool for the Dungeon Master.