1989

War of the Lance
Published: 1989
Publisher: SSI

Released in 1989, War of the Lance took the popular Dragonlance franchise out of its usual role-playing game setting and brought it to the realm of turn-based strategy. Players took command of evil or good armies of human, elves, dwarves, kender, and draconians equipped with dragonlances, dragon orbs, and gnomish technology in the battle for the continent of Ansalon.

War of the Lance's gameplay was strictly turn-based; each turn was divided into phases (quest, champion, reinforcements, subversion, diplomatic, country status, initiative, recovery, and combat). Campaigns had two paths to victory; players could simply score enough points by forming enough alliances and winning enough battles; or they could capture their opponents' capitals: The good-aligned player had to capture city and tower Neraka, the capital of evil, while the evil player could claim victory by capturing the Solamnic provinces of Solanthus, Caergoth, Gunthar and Northern Ergoth, and the Tower of Palanthus.

Dungeon Master's Assistant, Volume II
Published: 1989
Publisher: SSI

Dungeon Master's Assistant, Volume II, released in 1989, was, like its predecessor, not a computer game at all. As in the previous title, Dungeon Master's Assistant Volume II was a utility for pen-and-paper AD&D enthusiasts that helped generate random numbers of monsters, random treasure types, and random player characters and NPCs. Volume II allowed players access to Unearthed Arcana (the last of the first edition rulebooks), which contained a great many exotic items, spells, and characters not found in the standard set.

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