Wizard's Crown

This is probably one of my very few regrets in life, or maybe not regret so much as unfulfilled wish.  I ALWAYS wanted to play this CRPG.  It was released by SSI right in the middle of the AD&D 2e hullabaloo in 1986.  I had stopped playing D&D by then, but was still interested in fantasy RPG's.  I played rogue and Bard's Tale and Ultima, but they seemed more like games I played because everyone else did, and frankly they did not deliver an RPG experience the same way I played them with pen and paper.

Then came Wizard's Crown...the box art alone and me geeked! Wallow in its greatness! Here is a fantasy cover with NO ONE in plate mail, a guy is injured, the shield has no heraldry and its scarred and to any TFT/Melee/wizard fan the phrase TACTICAL COMBAT was like manna from heaven.  It was like someone got into my head and lifted a scene right out of my pen and paper game!  I read ads, saw it in stores, and even read a LOOONG review in Dragon #114 about it.  It was the perfect game I had waited for!

Then, I never played it...

I can;t come up with a because "x" then "y" rationale but I think I can tell why.  I know the $40 price tag was beyond my means to some extent, and we did not have a computer to play it, as I played over at a friends on his C64.   My guess is I never bought it because my friend WAS a Bard's Tale fanatic, and I know my type of game would have been not often played by him.  So I would have a $40 rarely played game, or worse, I'd leave it at my friends dirty house and his dog or something worse would happen to the game.  In the end whatever the reason I never got to play it.

I know there are a TON of emulators and I "could" play it today, heck I even have a word doc of the rule book for pity's sake, just for nerd coolness.  One of the problem's with some games is they don;
't age well visually-and honestly WC did not age well.  Now for a guy who loves roguelikes you would think this would not matter...but for some reason it does.  Still, If I could find a poster sized version of that cover I would snap it up in a heart beat!  A sequel to WC came out...dagger something...but it just never fired my imagination like WC did...and still does.

Anyway, I guess that is one more strength for pen & paper rpg's really, the visuals you have while playing them never go out of date.