Oubliette

Oubliette is a multiplayer-first RPG for the PLATO system. This an RPG that directly influences the Wizardry series which in turn provides inspiration for Dragon Warrior and the whole branch of Japanese RPGs. The word “oubliette” is a French word that describes a secret dungeon only accessible by a trap door.

Oubliette was initially developed by Jim Schwaiger at the University of Illinois in 1977. Jim was joined by his friend and fellow student John Gaby who helped write the 3D, first person, view of the game. The 3D view is rendered in a wireframe style much like Moria an inspiration and earlier PLATO game.

I created the plotter, but Jim S. is the one who originally created the game. He had a 2-D plotter and when I came and worked on it with him, I created the 3-D plotter and a number of other pieces.

Like Moria, Oubliette lets players team up and explore dungeons together. Oubliette adds more content than Moria and leans more deeply into the multiplayer aspect.

Oubliette, like other PLATO games, was continually developed over it’s lifetime, so it’s tricky to date particular features or innovations.

Setting

Oubliette doesn’t have an overt goal, it’s not a winnable game, in reality there’s little plot outside of some sparse world-building. This makes it a “purer” video game than most RPGs, it’s meant to be endless replayed and enjoyed in and of itself. The basic premise is that there is castle in the world of Tokal and beneath the castle is a dungeon full of monsters. People enter the dungeon to prove themselves and find treasure.

Oubliette was a game played in big groups, late at night in the computer labs over multiple weeks. It’s not a game that can be played alone, at least not effectively, you must party up with other people. Players invest a lot of time to develop their characters and everyone pulls together as a team to try and delve deeper into the dungeon. The gameplay is high stakes, if too many missteps are made then those characters, worth weeks of playtime, can be destroyed forever!

Stats and Character Creation

Oubliette was released on PLATO after Moria, an earlier multiplayer RPG. Moria didn’t have species or classes but Oubliette introduces both these concepts. In Oubliette, your species and class matters directly affects how the game plays.

Character creation begins by inviting the player to first choose a “type” i.e. the fantasy species or race you’d like your character to be.

The species are a mix of those taken from D&D, Tolkien and Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books. They include: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Half Dwarves, Half Elves, Hobbits, Orcs, Uruk-hai, Ogre, Pixie, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Ur-vile and Eldar-elf.

Some species have special traits including immortality (i.e. they don’t die of old age), infravision (ability to see in the dark) and immunity to being paralysed. In addition to that your species determines how good or bad the dice rolls are for your primary stats. Likely age of natural death also varies by species.

There are a scattering of species-based abilities, for instance elves have a special trait in that they can touch other characters to cure paralysis using the t key.

After choosing a species the player is shown a list of prerolled stats and a randomly assigned gender. The player can reroll these as they see fit before choosing to continue.

The stats are the standard set straight from first edition D&D:

• Str - strength, for dealing damage and carry weight.
• Int - intelligence used with spells.
• Wis - wisdom increases the chance of cleric spells working.
• Cha - charisma used by Courtesans and Valkyries classes.
• Con - constitution used for hitpoints and increases chances of resurrection.
• Dex - dexterity used for number of attacks, evading, disarming boxes, and stealing

An alignment is randomly assigned after deciding species and stats. The species determines the possible alignments available for your character from the standard D&D set: Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral. Alignment determines who you can steal from and certain items are alignment locked.

Once you have chosen a species you may chose a class. Classes are locked by stat, alignment, gender, and species (only humans may be the ranger class for example). The classes themselves are: Cleric, Demondim, Courtesan, Hirebrand, Mage, Minstrel, Ninja, Paladin, Peasant, Ranger, Raver, Thief, Sage, Samurai and Valkyrie.

The classes are certainly a departure for the usual D&D fare but they are themetically a bit of a hodgepodge.

Some classes have special abilities for instance paladins have a special skill activated by using the P key where they can cure some hits of another party member (2*paladin_level). This ability can only be used one per dungeon trip and thieves exclusively have the ability to hide.

For a player character the game tracks:

• Species
• Gender
• Alignment
• Class

as well as

• Name - like many other PLATO RPGs you get to name your character.
• Age
• Hitpoints
• Armor Class
• Spell Slots
• Experience
• Level
• A list of items you have equipped
• A list of spells effecting you

Oubliette is tracking a similar amount to Moria but it’s doing a bit more with the data is has.

Exploration

The game is presented in the first person, with simple lines to represent walls and doorways. It looks very similar to Moria. The 3D view only takes up a small portion of the center of the screen, probably because of limited processing power. Space around the 3D view can be optionally filled with useful character stats presented as text. The world is divided into a regular grid and you can move around a grid space at a time using the arrow keys.

Oubliette has a party system where you can join a group of other players. Most of the game is intended to be experienced as a member or leader of a party of players.

The are two areas; the castle and the dungeon. The castle has various shops and is safe. The dungeon has random monster encounters. The dungeon has ten levels for players to explore. The levels are preauthored and not randomly generated.

In the castle these are the special areas available:

• Corwin General Store: buy equipment and torches.
• Merlin’s Magic Shop: buy and sell magic equipment. Before buying an object, it can be inspected with the I key, and depending on the object and the character’s Intelligence, it can be successfully identified. An item can also be tested before purchasing using the P key to increase the chances of identifying it, but if it turns out to be cursed, it will be automatically purchased and equipped. You cannot inspect or test objects that cannot be paid for.
• Brand’s Potion Shop: Buy potions and magic scrolls.
• House of Healing: Heal wounds or diseases (paralysis or poison), and revive dead or petrified characters. All services require a donation in gold, which in the case of resurrections will be higher the higher the character’s level and in the case of healings they will be higher the more is donated.
• Guilds: join a guild. There is a guild for each character class and some have alignment requirements to join. Higher and higher donations must be made to rank higher in the guild. At rank 1 or higher, a free follower of the guild’s character class can be requested. This follower does not reduce the gold or experience received by the character, but if he dies, his rank in the guild will be reduced by 1.
• Enchanted followers stores: Buy and sell enchanted followers. The followers fight for the party and take damage. You can only have one enchanted, also called a charmee, follower at a time, and if you try to purchase another, the previous one will escape. You can also have up to 4, non-enchanted, normal followers.
• Hotels: rest and recover faster than sleeping in the corridors of the castle. Depending on the quality of the hotel, it will be more expensive and rest will take less time.
• Taverns: a place to hangout chat and form parties.
• Morgue: stores dead characters and you can visit to resurrect allies. Any dead characters left in the city will appear here.
• Temple: identify magic items or get rid of cursed items by paying gold to the Patriarch.
• Honest John’s Bank: to deposit and withdraw gold or objects.
• Jail: for characters caught stealing. Time, gold and items are wasted.
• Kesim’s Casino: to bet on different games and win or lose gold.

Enter a square containing one of these special areas will ask the user if they want to enter and if they select yes will show a menu with a number of options specific to each place.

Exploration Actions

There are number of actions that players can take during the exploration state of the game. The standard taking a rest action is available by pressing the r key. Players can only rest in the castle. Resting restores hit points and spell points. Resting also removes any “charmee” companions you have. Charmees are magical companions, which you can buy from a shop to reduce your chance of getting hit.

Oubliette is the first game to allow you to steal from other players. This kind of anti-social interaction is a departure from Moria. It’s enables a grief style of play that was likely the first of it’s kind. Stealing is done by pressing the S key. If you are neutral or chaotic, you may attempt to steal money and/or magic items from anyone who is on the same square as yourself. If you are caught trying to steal, you will be kicked out of the party. If the person you are stealing from is dead, you will have a 100% chance of success. If you are lawful, you may steal onlu from a dead or stoned body.

Special Rooms

Oubliette has a concept of “special rooms”; a specific tile in the level that triggers a particuarly difficult battle. If you win, then you get special items. This is much like the basic loot formula seen in later games like Worlds of Warcraft.

Each level has one grid square that’s known as a special room or SR, in Oubliette lingo, which has a harder than usual battle and gives a better than usual loot drop.

Each of the 10 levels had a designated “special room” (SR), location determined by random placement. This would contain 15 of one of the top-tier mobs available on the level, and it would always surprise you.

Traps

Dungeons have a good number of features, there are traps, such as moats (they do damage), slides to other levels, teleporters, rotators, and anti-magic or dark fields. There are also stairs to change levels and secret doors, which can only be seen with a light spell.

The other type of trap are those treasure chests. Enemies can drop treasure chests, which may be trapped. When a box is found the character has the following options:

• Inspect (I key): to try to find out if the box is trapped and what kind of trap. Success depends on Wisdom.
• Disarm (D key): to try to disarm the trap from the box. You must write the name of the trap you - think you it is. Success depends on Dexterity.
• Open (O key): to open the box.
• Leave (L key): to leave the box without opening it. Only the leader can choose this option.

The ability to successfully inspect and disarm traps depends on the character’s race and class.

Treasures can be coins of different metals, gems and jewels, or normal and magical objects (there are more than 100 different magic items). Coins, gems and jewels are automatically converted to their value in gold coins. Magic items can be good or cursed.

Multiplayer

Oubliette is an exclusively multiplayer game unlike Moria. Moria is primarily a multiplayer game but a dedicated single player can access all the content. This is not true of Oubliette. It is too difficult to play alone and other players are required to fill out a party in order to defeat the more difficult bands of monsters.

Multiple parties can exist in the game world at once. One user is the designated the leader and they handle the movement while the rest of the party input is restricted mostly to combat.

Monsters

Oubliette has over 100 monsters and they are more realised than prior PLATO games. Monster are comprised of:

• a sprite
• name
• type
• level
• a large number of combat stats

In the screenshot above HD isn’t defined but most likely refers to hit dice, i.e. a stat to determine the range of hitpoints for an instance of the monster.

The monster type determines a number of different traits for instance; the enchanted type are magic resistant, they can neither be slept nor charmed, can not run away, and their treasures are normally poor.

The types include: fighter, magic user, priest, thief, midget, giant, mythical, dragon, animal, lycanthrope, undead, demon, flyer, insect, enchanted and aquatic.

Monsters may have special abilities. These are some of the most developed RPG enemies yet and expect players to use specific tactics against them to win; usually drawing on D&D knowledge that most players at time would have or quickly learn.

Items

Characters start with no equipment but a small amount of money to buy necessary items from the castle shop. Much like Moria certain equipment is stat locked but Oubliette adds additional equipment rules. There are over 200 items in most recent iteration of the game but this was certainly built up over time.

Some equipment equipment is only available for certain classes and only some classes have access to all equipment slots.

The Hirebrand class may wear Plate armor but the Cleric may only wear Leather. The Hirebrand has a slot for Helm and Bracer items but these are locked off for the Cleric. There are number of different restrictions for each class. Additional specific items may be locked off by stats or alignment.

Equipment is divided into weapons, shields, armor, helmets, boots, jewelry, gloves and miscellaneous. Only one of each type can be used at a time except miscellaneous, which is not limited. Torches are required to see in the dungeon unless the character’s race has infravision or a light spell is available.

Items may have special abilities that can be activated with the U key, for “use”.

Certain weapons may be particularly effective against certain enemy types. The weapon system is the most sosphisicated seen in an RPG up until this point.

One such item is the “Holy Sword”, it is restricted to players that chose the paladin class. It has a good attack and hit chance, decreases the armor class (which is a good thing) and can be used to dispel demons.

There fields for a weapon are:

• Name
• Type - [weapons, shields, armor, helmets, boots, jewelry, gloves, miscellaneous]
• Number of Attacks Per Combat Round
• Damage - the damage inflicted per attack. The represents a range 1..Damage.
• Hit Chance - modifier for the chance to land a hit on an enemy, this may be negative
• Armor Class - modifier for the characters AC. Higher is better.
• Power - special ability activated when used.
• Destroy Chance - 0..100 range, representing the chance the weapon is destroyed when used.
• Race Filter - list of races that may wield/equip the item
• Class Filter - list of classes that may wield/equip the item
• Cost - Gold you get if sell it?

Combat

Due to the multiplayer nature of Oubliette combat is real time. The game cannot wait on each character to decide their action before moving on to the next instead everyone is invited to take an action as their time comes and when they make their decision the action is performed.

Oubliette is a multiplayer game and the party layout matters as describe the help text below:

When fighting occurs in the dungeon, there is only room in a corridor for the first three members of the party to fight (note that it is the last three in the case of attacks from the rear). For this reason, the leader must Order the party properly. It is advisable to put your mages in the middle with three fighters (or clerics) in front and in back.

The possible combat actions are:

• f - fight
• p - parry
• s - cast spell
• h - hide
• E - evade
• Q - seduce
• B - bard’s charm
• P - paladin’s dispel
• C - cleric’s dispel
• H - scream for help
• U - use an item’s special ability

The combat simulation is based on Dungeons and Dragons this means the defense rating of entities is based on armour class where a lower value means a higher defense.

AC is the Armor Class, or protection rating for the player. An AC of 9 corresponds to a player with no protection whatsoever, and any protective equipment the player uses will lower the AC from that point. For example, a Hirebrand wearing Plate Mail and a Shield for protection would have an armor class of 1 . The lower the armor class, the harder the player is to hit.

If the character’s hit points reach zero, the character dies. The characters dead body becomes an object in the world. Other players can pick up the body, carry it back to the castle and there’s a chance the player can be resurrected in the House of Healing. The appropriate cleric spell, or wizard if the player died of petrification, can also restore the player to life

Resurrections are not always successful, they can cause the character to lose 1 Constitution point, and if they fail, death is permanent. The user playing the character that died must remain connected to PLATO while the resurrection is attempted.

Magic

The magic system in Oubliette is quite novel, spell names are constructed from a “spell language” that David Emigh invented.

In the screenshots below, I descend into the dungeon. It’s dark so I can see anything. I press s to cast a spell and type in the name for the light spell; dumapic. Once this spell is successfully cast, I can see the dungeon appear around me.

One of our friends (then a physics graduate student) created a language unique to the game, and the spells were all written in its unique language. For example, […] “GEI” meant air […] “BOR” was loosely rod. For the spell names, GEI – BOR meant “air rod” or magic missile.

You can press s cast a spell and this works during exploration or combat. Spells have a name, a level, a filter for what targets the spells affects and a restriction for when it can be cast, i.e. only during combat, during exploration or anytime. The player needs to type in the name of the spell to cast it and there’s no help; you’ve either memorised it, or have it written down somewhere near the computer.

Advancement

Characters have experience points, which are obtained by killing enemies and obtaining treasures. Both the character’s race and class dictate the experience points required to level up. Leveling up increases the power of the character’s abilities, gives him more hit points and sometimes attribute points, and may also allow access to new spells and more spell slots.

Characters can only level up at a guild they are a member of, there are requirements for both experience points and gold.

Con is the most important statistic for your char. It effects how many hits you get per level […]

The good news is, you can raise any char’s Dex with cash, by simply visiting Brand’s Potions (across the street from the bank.) You can buy an infinite number of potions of strength and speed there for about 4M gold each.

Sex

The fantasy genre started off quite sexless. The Lord of the Rings barely has any women at all and even less to say about relationships in general. Oubliette does introduce sex into it’s world. It’s not in a very progressive way but it’s there.

This characteristic [ed: Charisma] also takes into account the ‘sexual’ appeal of characters which is important for Courtesans and Vaklyries

During combat you can press Q to “seduce”.

You must be female to have this option work for you. When you try to seduce a monster there is a percentage that you will fail. The higher level you are, the better your chances. The higher the monster level, the worst(sic) your chances. This option could mean instant death.

Apart from using sex appeal as a game mechanic the game also has a brothel.

The LIGNE Leisure Space, established long ago by the founder of LIGNE castle, provides a place for weary adventurers to rest and enjoy themselves after a hard trip in the dungeon. The spa specializes in presenting attractive scenery and activities for it’s guests, and prides itself on being free of certain types of disease. Minimum fee for a room is 100k.

End Game

Oubliette is interesting in that it doesn’t have a real win condition. This might be due to it’s multiplayer nature; how can one player complete a multiplayer RPG? But players did enjoy an “end game” to borrow a term from the future:

I hope I’ve helped people understand that the “endgame” of oub [ed: Oubliette] wasn’t completely non-existent, and give a sense of what the SRs [ed: Special Rooms ] were like. I’ve sort of had similar adrenaline rushes on raids in more current MMOs, but the suspense of carpeting the entire level and never knowing when the SR would pop was a sort of unique rush to oub

Legacy

Oubliette’s biggest legacy is it’s influence on the Wizardry series which in turn greatly influenced Japanese role-playing games.

Race/Species System - This is the first game to have a choice of fantasy race during character creation.

Systematic Magic System - The magic system moves away from a simple list of spells a little to towards a magic system with logical rules. There’s a language to the spell names that allows the player to infer the properties of a spell and guess what other spells might exist.

Class System - This is one of the first games to introduce classes chosen at character generation time. It’s certainly the first game with such a sophisticated class system.

NPC Companion System - The first game to allow you recruit NPCs into your party.

Resurrection - Due to continued development it’s hard to know if Moria or Oubliette did this first. There’s someway out has some way out of permadeath. A fellow player can resurrect you.

Special Casing - I’m not sure how to describe this better but there’s a lot more functional data attached to the entities in the game. Your fantasy race is important and may have special abilities associated with it or change stats. Equipment may also have abilities and various kinds of restriction. Enemies have weakness and special powers.

Cursed Equipment - This is one of the first games to have cursed equipment. I’m not sure how curses function but they are mentioned in the help text of Merlin’s shop. Cursed swords and scrolls existed in Dungeons and Dragons and that probably provided the inspiration.

Sexual Content - It is the first RPG to have some kind of sexual content.

Real World Economy - the first game that had virtual items purchased for real world cash.

I didn’t participate in it, but - much as with modern MMORPGs, though on a tiny scale in comparison - there was also a lucrative cash business for selling said items off, though I think it died down some by the time I played much oub [ed: Oubliette].